OBD Novels in Verse - YOUTH

"Etan has stopped speaking since his mother left. His father and grandfather don't know how to help him. His friends have given up on him. When Etan is asked to deliver a grocery order to the outskirts of town, he realizes he's at the home of Malia Agbayani, also known as the creature. Malia stopped going to school when her acute eczema spread to her face, and the bullying became too much. Soon, other kids tease Etan for being friends with the creature....

After a devastating tornado tears apart her home, thirteen-year-old Quinn struggles to find stability and return to who she was before, finding she has to rebuild herself.

Poverty-stricken Joseph bravely rides out all the storms life keeps throwing at him. -- Provided by publisher. Joe Oak is used to living on unsteady ground. His mom can't be depended on as she never stays around long once she gets "the itch," and now he and his beloved grandmother find themselves without a home. Fortunately, Joe has an outlet in his journals and drawings and takes comfort from the lessons of comic books -- superheroes have a lot...

"Twelve-year-old Caera Donovan and her family flee a wildfire bearing down on their hometown of Pine Grove, with no time to find Caera's beloved dog Mike. Faced with the loss of everything she knows, Caera can't stand to lose Mike as well and seeks a way to sneak back to Pine Grove. When her plans are thwarted, she must learn to embrace a new definition of "home.""-- Provided by publisher.

Unable to find their rhythm, once-close twin sisters Maya and Chaya make a bet: they'll switch places at summer camp and whoever can keep the ruse going the longest will get to make a life-changing decision, which isn't as easy as it sounds.

Seventh-grade Alex's favorite things to do are watching YouTube videos of rocket launches with his Papi and spending hours on the NASA website reading about astronauts and planets. He even dreams of going to space one day himself, and knows he'll have to study hard in order to get there. But Alex is in his grade's SC (self-contained) classroom, which means doing the same dull worksheets every day and reading books his sister read back in the third...

Nine-year-old Betita and her parents fled Mexico after her uncle was killed by the cartels, and settled in Los Angeles seeking political asylum and safety in what her father calls Aztlan, the land of the cranes; but now they have been swept up by by the government's Immigration Customs Enforcement, her father deported back to Mexico, and Betita and her mother confined in a family detention camp--Betita finds heart in her imagination and the picture...

When her mother breaks up with yet another boyfriend, Calliope meets Jinsong at her latest middle school, who becomes her friend despite her Tourette Syndrome and the embarrassment it can cause.

ZJ's friends Ollie, Darry and Daniel help him cope when his father, a beloved professional football player, suffers severe headaches and memory loss that spell the end of his career.