Central Skagit Library District

As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.

When 100 juvenile delinquents are sent on a mission to recolonize Earth, they get a second chance at freedom, friendship, and love, as they fight to survive in a dangerous new world.

Twelve-year-old Jonathan Grisby has been sent to the Slabhenge Reformatory School for Troubled Boys, a former lunatic asylum which is currently run by a sadist who enjoys punishing the boys and setting them against each other; but when a lightning strike kills all the adults the boys find themselves suddenly free--and trapped on Scar Island which seems to be sinking into the ocean.

Rusty James is a troubled teen who lives in the shadow of his older brother, "the Motorcycle Boy." He wants to be smart, tough, and cool like his sibling. Trouble is, he seems to only have the tough part down. Rusty isn't a leader like his brother, he's only good at getting people into trouble and trying to kick and punch his way out of it. Everyone around him has given up on Rusty James, and he's going to destroy anybody around him, including himself....

No Choirboy takes readers inside America's prisons and allows inmates sentenced to death as teenagers to speak for themselves. In their own voices they talk about their lives in prison and share their thoughts and feelings about how they ended up there. Susan Kuklin also gets inside the system, exploring capital punishment itself and the intricacies and inequities of criminal justice in the United States.

"A thought-provoking, masterfully told work of literary journalism about a shocking crime committed by a teenager-and its even more shocking aftermath In 1985 in Gary, Indiana, a black teenaged girl kills an elderly white woman in a robbery gone wrong. The shock and awe of the case captivates the state, whose citizens cry out for vengeance. Soon after, Paula Cooper, the fifteen-year-old killer, is sentenced to death. Indiana's minimum age for the...

Haunted by the event that sentences him to time in a group home, Miguel breaks out with two unlikely companions and together they begin their journey down the California coast hoping to get to Mexico and a new life.