Self Image Fiction

This is the story of a brave and intelligent 12-year-old girl placed in a life and death situation and fighting for survival. It’s a story about a dog who understands some people need biting and other people need a fearless friend. It’s a story about perceptions, how people behave in their private lives versus how the news media and social media portray them. It’s funny and poignant, thoughtful and exciting, a harrowing adventure celebrating the tenacity of the human spirt.

Dancing with the Paris Opera ballet is 14-year-old Marie van Goethem's greatest joy. And yet she must honor her father's dying request to keep their poverty-stricken family together. She certainly can't count on the help of her drunken mother or selfish older sister. When famous artist Edgar Degas asks Marie to model for a sculpture, she welcomes the income - although she's hesitant to pose nude.

Dorf is all about skateboarding and so far that's worked out fine. But now that he's in a new city, the terrain has changed. He's no longer free to skateboard where he wishes, school is more difficult, and his passion for skateboarding garners him the nickname and reputation of a freak. With daring stunts he gains the grudging respect of local troublemakers, but he needs to tap into another kind of courage to effect real change.

Everyone has a panza—it can be big and round, soft and small, or somewhere in between. But a young boy’s favorite panza of all is Mamá’s. Her panza is capable of remarkable things, and she loves it as an important part of herself. Her panza was also his first home. Even before he was born, it cradled and held him. When he’s feeling shy and needs a place to hide or when he wants somewhere to rest during a bedtime story, Mamá’s panza is always there.

This program is read by the author. Tiffany Pham, founder and CEO of Mogul, created one of the most successful platforms for girls worldwide, reaching millions of people to enact true change in their lives, after receiving thousands of emails asking for advice. In Girl Mogul, she speaks directly to teens and young adults, sharing insights from her own life as well as from the lives of the most incredible and inspiring women on Mogul. Tiffany has proven that with the right attitude, the right people, and the right vision, there’s nothing girls can’t do.

An Na has earned critical raves for her young adult fiction. She has won the Michael L. Printz Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award. In The Fold, she examines the complications surrounding teenage plastic surgery. Joyce is thrilled when her aunt becomes suddenly wealthy. But when her aunt decides Joyce needs a makeover, Joyce must decide if she is ready to go under the knife to become the popular swan she's always wanted to be.

When Thisbe Locke is last seen standing on the edge of the Coronado Bridge, it looks like there is only one thing to call it. But her sister Ted is not convinced. Despite the witnesses and the police reports and the divers, and the fact that she was heartbroken about the way things ended with Clay and how she humiliated herself at that party, Thisbe isn't the type of person to end up just an "incident". While everyone in town prepares to mourn the loss (some more than others), Ted and Fen, the new kid in town, set out to put the pieces together and find her sister.

Artist Piper Perish has moved from her hometown of Houston, Texas, to New York City. Her days are spent exploring; her nights are filled with painting. It's her lifelong dream come true.... Except life in the city isn't as glamorous as it looks from afar. Piper's high-pressure work as an assistant to a famous modern artist takes away time from her own art. And Piper's new friend Grace, a budding activist, has Piper beginning to wonder if making great art is really enough.

Central International School’s annual lock-in is legendary - and for six students, this year’s lock-in is the answer to their dreams. The chance to finally win the contest. Kiss the guy. Make a friend. Become the star of a story that will be passed down from student to student for years to come. But then a group of students, led by Marisa Cuevas, stage an eco-protest and chain themselves to the doors, vowing to keep everyone trapped inside until their list of demands is met.

Stella lives with depression, and her goals for junior year are pretty much limited to surviving her classes, staying out of her parents’ constant fights, and staving off unwanted feelings enough to hang out with her friends Lin and Katie. Until Kevin. A quiet, wry senior who understands Stella and the lows she’s going through like no one else. With him, she feels less lonely, listened to - and hopeful for the first time since ever.... But to keep that feeling, Stella lets her grades go, and her friendships slide.

Piper Perish inhales air and exhales art. The sooner she and her best friends can get out of Houston and get to New York City, the better. Art school has been Piper's dream her whole life, and now that senior year is halfway over, she's never felt more ready. But in the final months before graduation, things are weird with her friends and stressful with three different guys, and Piper's sister's tyrannical mental state seems to thwart every attempt at happiness for the close-knit Perish family.

My brother is gone. My mom is too stuck in her own grief to see me, and my dad thinks pain isn’t something to ever be discussed. Even my boyfriend has let me down over and over again. It feels like there is only one way forward, only one way out. Just when I’m ready to end my own life, something sucks me back in. One note. One sweet song to keep me going. Those melodic melodies sweetly singing in my ears give me hope.

Hannah McCauley doesn't look at herself in the mirror anymore. After a rebellious past, she now attends a strict private school in a new town, where her recently divorced mother has put her on social lockdown. No driving. No bad grades. No skipping classes. No unapproved friends. No makeup. No boys. And the subject of her best friend from her old school is definitely forbidden. Hannah is being punished for something that happened a year earlier, something that she would like to put behind her.

She’s learning to be happy...on her own. Myra is used to keeping her feet firmly on the ground. She’s got four younger brothers, overworked parents, and a pregnant older sister, and if Myra wasn’t there to take care of everyone, they’d probably fall apart. But when her boyfriend unceremoniously dumps her, Myra feels like she’s lost her footing. Suddenly she’s doing things she never would have a few months earlier: Jumping around in a chicken suit for a part-time job and competing against her ex-boyfriend for a scholarship to study birds in the Galápagos.

Meet Sloane Emily Jacobs: A seriously stressed-out figure skater who choked during junior nationals. Now meet Sloane Devon Jacobs, a spunky ice hockey player who's been suspended from her team for too many aggressive hip checks. The two girls are on their way to skating camps in Montreal when a luggage mix-up causes them to meet. Pretty soon, the Sloanes realize that this is the opportunity they’ve been waiting for: the chance to escape their lives and switch places for the summer.

It isn't easy being able to read minds - guys' minds, especially. Gusty Peterson, the hottest bimboy in school, is always thinking I'm sick, as in totally gross to look at. Not that it matters, since I don't have a crush on him or anything. And Mallory, my first real friend since forever, has disturbing, romantic ideas about me bouncing in his brain. Even worse, scrawny Jacob has bizarre fantasies about decorating my ginormous gazungas with mascarpone cheese.

Fat girls and boys and nonbinary teens are: friends who lift each other up, heroes who rescue themselves, big bodies in space, intellects taking up space and bodies looking and feeling beautiful. They express themselves through fashion, sports and other physical pursuits, through food, and music, and art. They are flirting and falling in love. They are loving to themselves and one another.

Ocean Sun has always felt an enormous pressure to succeed. After struggling with depression during her senior year of high school, Ocean moves to New York City, where she has been accepted at a prestigious university. But Ocean feels so emotionally raw and unmoored (and uncertain about what is real and what is not) that she decides to defer and live off her savings until she can get herself together.

Baby is a teenager in trouble, and her last chance is a foster home with a husband and wife whose idea of fun is dogsledding. Still, it beats going to the juvenile detention center. Baby comes to love the dogs and takes naturally to sledding, but when her old boyfriend, Bobby, shows up, she can't stop herself from running off with him. Life with Bobby goes bad, and Baby has to make some hard decisions.

A room is not much. It is not arms holding you. Not a kiss on the forehead. Not a packed lunch or a remembered birthday. Just a room. But for 17-year-old Zoe, struggling to shed the suffocating responsibility of her alcoholic mother and the controlling guilt of her grandmother, a rented room on Lorelei Street is a fierce grab for control of her own future.