Contemporary

A vacant lot, rat-infested and filled with garbage, looked like no place for a garden. Especially to a neighborhood of strangers where no one seems to care. Until one day, a young girl clears a small space and digs into the hard-packed soil to plant her precious bean seeds.

While working in her mother's beauty shop where all the best town's gossip flies free, Rosemary Goode becomes determined to lose the weight that seems to be an all too common topic and starts keeping a journal to record the year-long experience in achieving her goals, her relationships with others, and her feelings about life in her tight-knit Southern community.

Cameron Wolfe is hungry. He's sick of being the filthy, torn, half-smiling, half-scowling underdog. He's finally met a girl. He's got words in his spirit. And now he's out to prove that there's nothing more beautiful than an underdog who's willing to stand up.

Ecstasy. I'd always thought i might try it one day. I'd heard kids at school talking about getting wasted on the weekends. They made it sound awesome. I pictured the roughly made tablets with their tiny butterflies. An amazing experiance inside a tiny pill.

It's the first day of Kaitlin's first year in high school. Everything's different, but her old friends from primary school are in her class, so at least she's got someone to sit with.

Trouble is, they're both boys, and Kaitlin's pretty sure it's dorky to have boys for best friends – specially one who's in the chess club. The cool girls sure seem to think so, and Kaitlin wants to be in their group more than anything. But just how far is she prepared to go?

Behind the counter at Cinderella Cleaners, Diana watches the clothes come and go.

She loves to imagine the exciting events that the different outfits might be worn to.

Then one day, Diana reaches into the pocket of a fancy coat - and finds an invitation to a glittering gala in New York City. Since the coat's owner is out of town, Diana gets a wild idea.

With the help of some savvy friends, one glamorous dress, and a lot of improvising, Diana pretends to be someone she's not, and makes it into the party!

In the beginning there was me and Mum and Dad and the twins. And talk about happy families, we were bountiful. But it came to pass and I started doing sins. And lo, that's when all our problems began.

Bec is sick of always being the sensible one in her family. So she decides to die her hair and throw a party while her parents were away. Of course her parents didn't mind about the party but will bec's life be the same when it finishes.

A warm, surprising, real and intelligent novel you will fall in love with. Frankie Parsons is twelve and has a rodent voice of worry nibbling in his head. His new friend - colourful, creative, talkative Sydney - has relentless, unavoidable questions of her own that force Frankie and his family to face up to things that have lain dormant for years.