dysfunctional families

"While thirteen-year-old Teddy fights for his life after a football injury at training camp, his friends and family gather to support him and discuss events leading to his coma. Told through dialogue, text messages, newspaper articles, transcripts, an online forum, and Teddy's inner thoughts"--OCLC.

Anna Chiu has her hands full. When she's not looking after her brother and sister or helping out at her father's restaurant, she's taking care of her mother, whose debilitating mental illness keeps her in bed most days. Her father's new delivery boy, Rory, is a welcome distraction and even though she knows that things aren't right at home, she's starting to feel like she could be a normal teen. But when her mother finally gets out of bed, things go from bad to worse.

"Underprivileged and keenly self-aware, SoCal fourteen-year-old Layla Bailey isn't used to being noticed. Except by mean girls who tweet about her ragged appearance. All she wants to do is indulge in her love of science, protect her vulnerable younger brother, and steer clear of her unstable mother. Then a school competition calls for a biome. Layla chooses her own home, a hostile ecosystem of indoor fungi and secret shame. With a borrowed video camera, she captures it all. The mushrooms growing in her brother's dresser. The black mold blooming up the apartment walls. The unmentionable things living in the dead fridge. All the inevitable exotic toxins that are Layla's life. Then the video goes viral. When Child Protective Services comes to call, Layla loses her family and her home. Defiant, she must face her bullies and friends alike, on her own. Unafraid at last of being seen, Layla accepts the mortifying reality of visibility. Now she has to figure out how to stay whole and stand behind the truth she has shown the world"--OCLC.

When Rafe Kane enters middle school, he teams up with his best friend, "Leo the Silent," to create a game to make school more fun by trying to break every rule in the school's code of conduct.

"Fifteen-year-old Nevaeh Levitz is torn between two worlds, passing for white while living in Harlem, being called Jewish while attending her mother's Baptist church, and experiencing first love while watching her parents' marriage crumble"--Provided by publisher.

Incarcerated teen Quan Banks writes letters to Justyce McCallister, with whom he bonded years before over family issues, about his experiences in the American juvenile justice system.

Junk. That s what the kids at school call Bobby Lang, mostly because his rundown house looks like a junkyard, but also because they want to put him down. Trying desperately to live under the radar at school--and at the home he shares with his angry, neglectful father--Bobby develops a sort of proud loneliness. The only buffer between him and the uncaring world is his love of the long wooded trail between school and home.

"Nellie's dad had planned on having four boys to name after the presidents on Mt. Rushmore. He got George, Nellie, Tom and Teddy. No Abe. It's the summer of 1974: Nellie's turned thirteen: her best friend Maya, has a crush on a boy; President Nixon might get impeached; and her mom has run off. The money for their family road trip to see Mt. Rushmore is missing, and her dad has crawled into bed and won't get up. Nellie's sure the trip out West will fix her family and she'll do almost anything to come up with the cash. But she begins to wonder why it's always-her-the girl-who's stuck with the dishes and everything else. And how can a mom just up and leave with no note, no forwarding address, no nothing?"--Jacket flap.

"For as long as he can remember, Malcolm has never felt like he was good enough. Not for his parents, who have always seemed at odds with each other, with Malcolm caught in between. And especially not for his dad, whose competitive drive and love for sports Malcolm has never shared. That is, until Malcolm discovers miniature golf, the one sport he actually enjoys. Maybe it's the way in which every hole is a puzzle to be solved. Or the whimsy of the windmills and waterfalls that decorate the course. Or maybe it's the slushies at the snack bar. But whatever the reason, something about mini golf just clicks for Malcolm. And best of all, it's a sport his dad can't possibly obsess over. Or so Malcolm thinks. Soon he is signed up for lessons and entered in tournaments. And yet, even as he becomes a better golfer and finds unexpected friends at the local course, be wonders if he might not always be a disappointment. But as the final match of the year draws closer, the tension between Malcolm's parents reaches a breaking point, and it's up to him to put the puzzle of his family back together again"--OCLC.

While writing letters to Innocence X, a justice-seeking project, asking them to help her father, an innocent black man on death row, teenaged Tracy takes on another case when her brother is accused of killing his white girlfriend.