National Network for Equitable Library Service

Annie Berkley, a schoolmate of Shelby's who has appeared in previous books, lives in a foster home and has become depressed.

Short-listed for the 2012 SYRCA Snow Willow Award Lexie Malton is an average Vancouver teen with fairly typical issues.

"I knew one thing – I wasn’t going to be rotting in that place for the rest of my life. I was getting out of there. That place turned people into the living dead.

The Brannock brothers have very different dreams for their lives in the wide-open spaces of the American Southwest.