From the Margaret A. Edwards Award–winning author of Deliver Us from Evie comes a novel about a gay teenager who discovers a different kind of love during an unforgettable summer in the HamptonsI'd always think of it as the summer that I loved a girl . . .Seventeen-year-old Lang Penner and his mother are spending the summer in the caretaker's cottage at Roundelay, the sprawling East Hampton estate of legendary rocker Ben Nevada. Lang passes the time walking on the beach and hoping for a glimpse of his idol. When they finally meet, Nevada is very different from the man Lang imagined. He finds himself confiding in the retired star about his homosexuality. When Nevada hears Lang's secret, he figures Lang is a safe bet to show the seventeen-year-old daughter of some friends from France a good time in the Hamptons. This was supposed to be the summer of Lang's coming out. He even has a boyfriend, Alex, a twenty-year-old actor living in Manhattan. The last thing he expects is to...

The daughter of faith-healing Christians and the son of a TV evangelist are the stars of this lively cautionary tale about religion, family, faith, and loveI start my story with the day I first saw Jesse Pegler. That was when my whole life first started changing.Sixteen-year-old Opal Ringer is the daughter of Royal Ringer, the Pentecostal leader of a motley flock of down-on-their-luck believers. Jesse Pegler is the son of Brother Pegler. An "evangelist for Jesus," the elder Pegler is a flashy minister who appears regularly on television in his blue robes and gold tassels. Opal and Jesse meet at a faith healing at the Helping Hand Tabernacle church, where Opal's daddy preaches. Jesse, with his soft eyes and sandy hair, is a younger version of his older brother, Bud, who ran away from the religious life—and whom Opal can't forget.Alternating between Opal and Jesse's perspectives, What I Really Think of You follows two preachers' kids as they make fascinating discoveries...

Sabra St. Amour, reluctant teenage soap opera star, is spending the summer in the Hamptons with her domineering mother, recuperating from an ulcer and a nervous breakdown. Walking on the beach one day, Sabra meets Wally Witherspoon, son of the local undertaker, and his best friend Charlie. Wally has problems of his own, including being engaged to a girl he doesn't love while still pining for his ex, and his father's insistence that he follow him into the family business, which Wally detests. Charlie has just come out of the closet, which earned him a broken nose, care of his father. As the lives of these three teenagers collide over the course of one memorable summer, they are forced to choose between the future their parents want for them, and the life they want for themselves.

A teenager whose parents have separated tries to adapt to life at a boarding school and make a fresh start in a strange new placeAfter her mother runs off with her much-younger boyfriend, fourteen-year-old Flanders is shipped off to a boarding school in Virginia. On the train, she meets Carolyn Cardmaker, a preacher's daughter who will become her best friend. She also meets Ernestine Blue.Miss Blue is Flanders's faculty advisor at the Charles School, where each residence hall is named after a Charles Dickens novel. But Miss Blue's strict disciplinarian persona may be concealing a tragic past. As Flanders adjusts to life at school—which includes a deaf roommate and a terrifying blind date—she discovers surprising things about Miss Blue . . . and herself.A coming-of-age novel that transcends the ordinary in its perceptive, empathetic depiction of Flanders and the people in her life, Is That You, Miss Blue? takes us into a world where not everyone can be taken at face...

The residents of Critters animal shelter are all looking for a homeThere are many creatures at Critters, an animal-rescue facility, who are waiting for a home. Irving, a twelve-year-old part–German shorthaired pointer, loves to watch the soaps and has been living at Critters so long he believes it is his home. Placido, on the other hand, has no problem finding new homes—but with his bad habits, the cat is always back within twenty-four hours. Goldie the Labrador retriever is new at the shelter, and he's homesick for his last owners. Marshall, the black-and-yellow king snake who never knew his mother, doesn't think he's lovable enough to be adopted. But eleven-year-old Walter Splinter doesn't agree: He wants Marshall to be his.Featuring an array of endearing talking animals, Snakes Don't Miss Their Mothers is a fun, heartfelt story for every young animal lover.This ebook features an illustrated personal history of M. E. Kerr including rare images from the author's...

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder in this unusual love story Little Little La Belle isn't redundant. She's a dwarf—a beautiful blond heiress who lives a pampered existence in the New York town named after her family. With her eighteenth birthday approaching, her parents want to marry Little Little off to the perfect man.Enter Sydney Cinnamon. Orphaned young, he went on to become one of America's most famous dwarfs. The pint-size TV performer could have his pick of any diminutive lady. But with Little Little, it's love at first sight. With the entire town pulling out all the stops for her birthday bash—and more than one hot guy competing for her attention—Little Little is determined to make up her own mind about what she wants out of life and love.An uncommon tale about being different, Little Little proves that it's not how tall you are; it's the size of your heart that counts.This ebook features an illustrated personal history of M. E. Kerr including rare...

The first time Annabel sees him he is playing soccer and the second time he is singing for tips at Jungle Pete's. He is Esteban—one of the immigrants her contractor father hires, part of an ever-growing community of Latinos in the Hamptons. Esteban's sister calls Annabel "flour face" and Annabel's father forbids her to see him. But despite family disapproval there are meetings on dark beaches, notes left in library books, and a romance that's as hot as summer.

Award-winning author M. E. Kerr challenges stereotypes in this story about a fifteen-year-old grappling with his older sister's sexualityParr Burrman lives with his parents and his older brother and sister on a farm in Missouri. They're a typical Midwestern family—except for one thing.Parr's father thinks Evie's going to marry Cord Whittle, who's had a crush on her forever, and settle down in their hometown to help out with the farm. Instead, she falls in love with Patsy Duff, the gorgeous, privileged daughter of the banker who holds the mortgage on the Burrmans' property. When rumors start flying about Evie and Patsy, Parr has to contend with the derision of his classmates . . . and when he falls for a girl from a fundamentalist family who fears homosexuality like God's wrath, he must face his own conflicted emotions. Soon, Parr's parents—and the whole town—will know the truth about Evie. But it's Parr who has to deal with the burden of shame when his own...

In the hilarious sequel to Shoebag, the cockroach uses his magical abilities to help a lonely boy at an all-girls' schoolShoebag and his roach family have taken up residence in the Lower School at Miss Rattray's School for Girls in Wayne, Pennsylvania. Shoebag and his parents, Drainboard and Under The Toaster, like their new home because it's close to the kitchen. But lately, Shoebag has been dreaming about the time he was transformed into a person named Stuart Bagg—probably because the all-girls' school has just admitted its first boy.Homesick ten-year-old Stanley Sweetsong doesn't think he'll ever be good enough to join the Betters, the school's most exclusive club. What he needs is a pal—someone to help him hatch a plan to outsmart these snobs. So Shoebag uses his secret formula to transform himself back into Stu Bagg. Suddenly, Stanley has a new roommate who inspires him to come up with a better, even more elite club: the Butters. Stanley and Josephine Jiminez,...

M. E. Kerr's first novel—hailed by the New York Times as a "timely, compelling," and "brilliantly funny" look at adolescence and friendship It was bad enough that they had to move to Brooklyn—Brooklyn Heights, as Tucker Woolf's dad instructs him to tell everyone after he loses his job. Now his father has suddenly developed an allergy to Tucker's cat, Nader, a nine-month-old calico Tucker found underneath a Chevrolet. Tucker's beloved pet finds a new home with overweight, outrageous Susan "Dinky" Hocker, the only person to answer Tucker's ad.As Tucker starts paying regular visits to Dinky's house to check up on Nader, his life begins to change. Dinky introduces Tucker to her strange cousin, Natalia Line, a compulsive rhymer whom Tucker finds fascinating. And enter P. John Knight, who's fat like Dinky . . . and now, like Nader. With this odd cast of characters, a little world is created for big kids who need to go on diets. And who also, all of them, need to find out...

What do you do when your whole world is blown apart? A seventeen-year-old confronts love, betrayal, and his brother's illness in this brave, deeply compassionate novel by M. E. KerrLife is going great for Seaville High senior Erick Rudd. He's a good student, he has a girlfriend he'll probably marry, and he's on a straight path to college. Then his best friend's girlfriend lets him know she's attracted to him. Seventeen going on twenty-five, Nicki Marr is blond, green eyed, and gorgeous. Soon, Erick is seeing her on the sly.Guilt ridden over his deception, Erick isn't prepared for what happens next. He finds out that his brother, Pete, who's ten years older and lives in New York, is very sick . . . with AIDS. Erick is stunned; he didn't even know his brother was gay. It was Pete who told a five-year-old Erick that night kites don't think about the dark, that they're not afraid to be different.How Erick and his parents deal with Pete's illness—and how Erick handles his...

These fifteen short stories by a writer the New York Times Book Review has called "one of the grand masters of young adult fiction" capture our fears, yearnings, loneliness, self-doubts, and universal need for love and acceptance M. E. Kerr's pioneering young adult literature has gained a devoted following for fearlessly breaking rules and confronting conformity. In Edge, her trademark gifts of pulling apart relationships, exposing real emotion, and conveying what it means to grow up are on full display. From handling a teenage girl's coming out in "We Might as Well All Be Strangers" to asking philosophical questions about God, life, and death in "The Sweet Perfume of Goodbye" to parodying social norms in "Do You Want My Opinion?," this is a funny, moving, and brave anthology about faith, friendship, family ties, prom night, an unusual act of heroism, and staying true to yourself.

A cockroach wakes up one morning and discovers that he has turned into a boy Shoebag likes his life as a cockroach. Like the others in his “tribe,” he was named for the place of his birth—in his case, a white summer sandal. He enjoys living in a Boston apartment building with his parents, Drainboard and Under The Toaster, although they’ve lost countless relatives to jumping spiders, water bugs, beetles, and the deadly fumes of the dreaded exterminator. So when Shoebag discovers that he’s been transformed into a person, he’s horrified. But the worst is yet to come. Shoebag is adopted by the Biddle family and renamed Stu Bagg. Mr. Biddle enrolls him in Beacon Hill Elementary School, and every night for one hour before bedtime, he watches television with Eunice “Pretty Soft” Biddle, his new seven-year-old sister, who loves the color pink and is the star of toilet paper commercials. At school, Shoebag tries to fit in as a human, while back home he tries to protect his insect family from spiders, cats, and the Zapman. Then Shoebag discovers a secret formula that could change him back into a roach. All he has to do is choose. This ebook features an illustrated personal history of M. E. Kerr including rare images from the author’s collection.