Frank Carlson Library

"He said they want to talk to you, David." "They?" I said. "The cops?" She nodded. "What for?" I don't think I ever worked harder at getting just two words out of my mouth. I tried to sound like I had no idea what the cops would want with me." When his stepfather, Phil, is shot dead in an apparent robbery, David becomes the prime suspect. Where was David that night, and what does he know about Phil? David has figured out the truth about his stepfather,...

Carley uses humor and street smarts to keep her emotional walls high and thick. But the day she becomes a foster child, and moves in with the Murphys, she's blindsided. This loving, bustling family shows Carley the stable family life she never thought existed, and she feels like an alien in their cookie-cutter-perfect household. Despite her resistance, the Murphys eventually show her what it feels like to belong--until her mother wants her back and...

Twelve-year-old Addie tries to cope with her mother's erratic behavior and being separated from her beloved stepfather and half-sisters when she and her mother go to live in a small trailer by the railroad tracks on the outskirts of Schenectady, New York.

While a home invader terorizes the city, Josh finds himself sneaking into people's houses.

After moving with their widowed mother to the home in the woods near Concord, Wisconsin, nine-year-old Caroline Quiner, who grows up to become the mother of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and her brothers and sisters try to adjust to their new neighborhood and new stepfather.

"Magic is illegal in Newworld, so Maggie struggles to explain the strange shadows--that only she can see--that seem to accompany her new stepfather everywhere"--

Since her mother died, twelve-year-old Lily has struggled to care for her severely autistic half-brother, Adam, in their Miami home, but she is frustrated and angry because her oncologist step-father, Don, expects her to devote her time to Adam, and is unwilling to admit that Adam needs professional help. When Adam bonds with a young dolphin with cancer Lily is confronted with another dilemma: should her family's happiness take precedence over the...

Nate and his mother are escaping from his emotionally abusive step-father, Gary, but the run-down and abandoned cottage in the woods that his mother takes them to does not seem like much of a refuge; but when his mother goes off to buy provisions and does not come back Nate is left alone (except for his imaginary friend Sam) and afraid--until a mysterious girl trying to solve the clues of a long-ago treasure hunt turns up.

Pampered ten-year-old Arabella thinks that by becoming a cat, she can avoid being sent to boarding school by her mother's fourth husband, but she finds her new life fraught with unknown terrors and learns that her former life was not so bad after all.