While trying to find a new best friend after feuding with Rowley, middle-school slacker Greg Heffley is warned by older family members that adolescence is a time to act more responsibly and to think seriously about his future.

"Hank, Leland, Kip and Ronny were all born and raised in the same Wisconsin town--Little Wing--and are now coming into their own (or not) as husbands and fathers. One of them never left, still farming the family's land that's been tilled for generations.Others did leave, went farther afield to make good, with varying degrees of success; as a rock star, commodities trader, rodeo stud. And seamlessly woven into their patchwork is Beth, whose presence...

In "Why Grow Up? " the philosopher Susan Neiman asks not just why one should grow up but how. In making her case she draws chiefly from the thought of Kant and Rousseau, who articulated very different theories on the proper way to "come of age." But these thinkers complement each other in seeking a "path between mindlessly accepting everything you're told and mindlessly rejecting it," and in learning to live without despair in a world marked by painful...

"Nico Storm and his father Willem drive a truck filled with essential supplies through a desolate land. They are among the few in South Africa -- and the world, as far as they know -- to have survived a devastating virus which has swept through the country. Their world turned upside down, Nico realizes that his superb marksmanship and cool head mean he is destined to be his father's protector, even though he is still only a boy. But Willem Storm,...

Perhaps no book has had a more profound impact on intellectual and spiritual lives than "The Road Less Traveled." In his new Introduction, Dr. Peck recalls how this book evolved from his own early ideas as a therapist who was just beginning his own spiritual growth.

Homeschooled teenager Sebastian Prendergast is forced by his grandmother's stroke to venture out of his geodesic dome habitat and befriends a chain-smoking teen who introduces him to pop culture through the punk band they form together.

Describes predictable personality and sexual changes adults go through in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and beyond.

Twelve-year-old Neva and her older brother Clayton have been left with their grandparents for the summer, and she is having a difficult time dealing with change: the changes to her body, changes with her relationships with her brother who is becoming involved with social activism and their multicultural community (and with Michelle, the sexy girl across the street), and with her best friend, Jamila, whose father is from Ghana--Neva is growing up and...

When eleven-year-old Becca returns to her grandmother's rustic cottage for another summer, she finds herself seeing her beloved island in new ways. A hunting owl mistakes a bobbing ponytail for prey. A cozy sleepover on the beach takes on the tinges of a nightmare when a family of river otters shows up to claim their territory. An argument between a nestbound baby eaglet and its haranguing mother reaches operatic dimensions. Becca finds a dead bear...