Benbrook Public Library

Told in text messages, middle-schooler Ava is having a really bad day: her parents are getting divorced, she has had a big argument with her best friends, and the charge on her cellphone is getting low; but things are about to get a lot worse because the lockdown alarm has just gone off, and there is an intruder in the school building.

Duck finds a book and is surprised to discover that there are books with words and no pictures--and that even without pictures a book can interest and excite you.

One afternoon, Abi Morgan returned home to find her longtime partner and father to their two kids collapsed on the bathroom floor. Jacob, who had been undergoing treatment for multiple sclerosis, had suddenly experienced a series of seizures and had to be put into a medically induced coma. As he slowly regained consciousness after six months, he made tentative steps to communicate with those around him, and grappled with the host of issues that had...

"As the youngest graduating senior at her hypercompetitive high school, Perla Perez is certain all the late nights and crushing stress will be worth it when she gets into the college of her (and her parents') dreams: Delmont University. When she's rejected, Perla panics-- and forges her own acceptance letter. Now she's heading to Delmont, acceptance or not. Her plan is to gather on-the-ground intel to beef up her application and reapply spring semester...

Attend a writers' conference and meet an unbearable woman; move out in the woods with a couple good ol' boys to talk about what happens at the moment of death; meet a hard-luck woman who gets mixed up with the mob; witness a miniature mosquito-like creature; drop deep into the swamps to meet Granny Mose; subject yourself to a new kind of ink blot test; meet a man in an airport who will render you normal; lie mute and unmoving as a spider transports...

Set in a small town in rural Georgia, this poignant story unfolds a disappointing love affair between a 22-year old girl from the North and a man twice her age haunted by the ghosts of the South.