Thirty years before Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, the antislavery movement won its first victory in the British Parliament. On August 1, 1834, the Abolition of Slavery Bill took effect, ending colonial slavery throughout the British Empire. Over the next three decades, "August First Day," also known as "West India Day" and "Emancipation Day," became the most important annual celebration of emancipation among people of African descent...

Lucy, a fourteen-year-old high school freshman, experiences the happiness and confusion of dating a popular older boy, changing relationships with life-long friends, and sharing a bedroom with her older brother's pregnant girlfriend.

At age twenty-eight, Mira Ptacin discovered she was pregnant. Though it was unplanned, she soon embraced the pregnancy and became engaged to Andrew, the father. Five months later, an ultrasound revealed birth defects that would give the child no chance of survival outside the womb. Mira was given three options: terminate her pregnancy, induce early delivery, or wait and inevitably miscarry. Mira's story is woven together with the story of her mother,...

Grace, adopted at birth, is raised as an only child. At sixteen she's just put her own baby up for adoption, and now is looking for her biological family. She discovers Maya, her loudmouthed younger bio twin sister who was also adopted ; and Joaquin, their stoic older bio brother, who has no interest in bonding over their shared biological mother after seventeen years in the foster care system. Grace struggles between cautious joy at having found...

Sixteen-year-old Indy struggles to conceal that she is pregnant by rape and then, turned out by relatives, must find a way to survive on her own in Nassau.

When a virus makes everyone over the age of eighteen infertile, would-be parents pay teen girls to conceive and give birth to their children, making teens the most prized members of society. Girls sport fake baby bumps and the school cafeteria stocks folic-acid-infused food.

Sixteen-year-old identical twins Melody and Harmony were separated at birth and have never met until the day Harmony shows up on Melody's doorstep. Up to now, the twins

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A powerful, dual-narrative coming-of-age story set in 2009 China. Luli has just turned sixteen and finally aged out of the orphanage where she's spent the last eight years. Her friend Yun has promised to help her get work. Yun loves the independence that her factory job brings her. For the first time in her life she has her own money and can get the things she wants: nice clothes, a cell phone . . . and Yong, her new boyfriend. There are rumors about...

Two high school seniors believe their love to be so strong that it will last forever.

Once-popular Rob and overachiever Maegan, both dealing with serious family issues, quickly form a bond that is threatened when Rob confides plans to repair damage his father caused.

This isn't how Josh expected to spend senior year. He thought he'd be hanging out with his best friends, Dave and Caleb, driving around, partying, just like always. But here he is, miles from home - new school, new life, living with his Jackie-Chan-obsessed uncle, Larry, and trying to forget. But Josh can't forget. So many things bring back memories of last year and the night that changed everything. Every day the pain, the shame, and the just not...