Runaway

"It's a cold, hard, cruel fact that my mother loved heroin more than she loved me."

Holly is in her fifth foster home in two years and she's had enough. She's run away before and always been caught quickly. But she's older and wiser now--she's twelve--and this time she gets away clean.

Through tough and tender and angry and funny journal entries, Holly spills out her story. We travel with her across the country--hopping trains, scamming food, sleeping in parks or homeless encampments. And we also travel with her across the gaping holes in her heart--as she finally comes to terms with her mother's addiction and death.

Runaway is a remarkably uplifting portrait of a girl still young and stubborn and naive enough to hold out hope for finding a better place in the world, and within herself, to be.

Hardcover | Knopf Books for Young Readers | Juvenile Fiction - Social Situations - Runaways; Physical & Emotional Abuse; Family - Orphans & Foster Homes | 978-0-375-83522-3 | $15.95

Also available as a hardcover library binding and a trade paperback.

Swear to Howdy

Joey Banks is a walking adventure. He's funny, daring, mischievous-and frequently in trouble. Or he would be if anyone found out about half the stuff he's done. But Rusty Cooper knows how to keep a secret. And Joey's the best friend he's ever had. But then comes a secret that is at once too terrible to tell and too terrible to keep. A secret so big it threatens to eat them alive. What would a true friend do now?

Wendelin Van Draanen has written her most compelling, richly layered book yet. It's a thought-provoking look at the boundaries of friendship and what it really means to be true.

Hardcover | Knopf Books for Young Readers | Juvenile Fiction - Adolescence; Juvenile Fiction - Boys & Men; Juvenile Fiction - Friendship| 0-375-82505-3 | $15.95

Also available as a hardcover library binding and a trade paperback.

Flipped

The first time she saw him, she flipped. The first time he saw her, he ran. That was the second grade, but not much has changed by the seventh. She says: "My Bryce. Still walking around with my first kiss." He says: "It's been six years of strategic avoidance and social discomfort." But in the eighth grade everything gets turned upside down. And just as he's thinking there's more to her than meets the eye, she's thinking that he's not quite all he seemed.

This is a classic romantic comedy of errors told in alternating chapters by two fresh, funny new voices. Wendelin Van Draanen is at her best here with a knockout cast of quirky characters and a hilarious series of misunderstandings and missed opportunities. But underlying the humor are two teens in transition. They are each learning to look beyond the surface of people, both figuring out who they are, who they want to be, and who they want to be with.

Winner of the California Young Reader Medal!

Hardcover | Knopf Books for Young Readers | Juvenile Fiction - Love & Romance; Juvenile Fiction - Humorous Stories| 0-375-81174-5 | $14.95

Also available as a hardcover library binding and a trade paperback.