Colorado Parks & Wildlife Research Library

Mason Buttle is the biggest, sweatiest kid in his grade, and everyone knows he can barely read or write. But those troubles don't compare with grief. Fifteen months ago, Mason's best friend, Benny Kilmartin, turned up dead in the Buttle family's orchard. An investigation drags on, and Mason, honest as the day is long, can't understand why Lieutenant Baird won't believe the story Mason has told about that day. Mason's new friend, tiny Calvin Chumsky,...

"There are zero reasons for Theo Ripley to look forward to his family vacation. Not only are he, sister Laura, and nature-obsessed Dad going to Big Bend, the least popular National Park, but once there, the family will be camping. And Theo is an indoor animal. It doesn't help that this will be the first vacation they're taking since Mom passed away. Once there, the family contends with 110 degree days, wild bears, and an annoying amateur ornithologist...

High in his attic bedroom, twelve-year-old David mourns. and soon finds that reality and fantasy have begun to meld. While. bestselling author John Connolly tells a dark and compelling tale. by heroes and monsters and ruled by a faded king who keeps his. company. But those books have begun to whisper to him in the. darkness. Angry and alone, he takes refuge in his imagination. his family falls apart around him, David is violently propelled. into...

Spending the summer with her grandfather, Annie enlists the help of her new friend California to find the ponies her mother rode on as a girl and repair a family rift.

Fleeing from the orphanage where she lives, Grace makes a deal with the witch in the nearby woods--if Grace can learn all the witch's spells, she must make Grace her apprentice--an agreement that leads to an unexpected bond, and an unimaginable sacrifice.

Seventh-grader Hercules Beal has to figure out how to fulfill his teacher's assignment of performing the Twelve Labors of Hercules in real life, and discovers important things about friendship, community, and himself along the way.

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.

Twelve-year-old Mitch and his mother are spending the summer with his grandparents at Bird Lake after his parents separate, and ten-year-old Spencer and his family have returned to the lake where Spencer's little brother drowned long ago, and as the boys become friends and spend time together, each of them begins to heal.

"It’s 2003, several months since the US officially declared war on Iraq, and the American political world has evolved. Tensions are high, hate crimes are on the rise, FBI agents are infiltrating local mosques, and the Muslim community is harassed and targeted more than ever. Shadi, who wears hijab, keeps her head down. She's too busy drowning in her own troubles to find the time to deal with bigots. Shadi is named for joy, but she’s haunted by...

Desperate to reach her grieving mother, Mira joins a group of college students driving home after their flight is stranded, but the road conditions are not the only mortal danger they face. Stuck at the Philadelphia airport by an incoming blizzard results, Mira hitches a ride to Pittsburgh with a group of college kids who were on her initial flight. As the trip begins she discovers that her fellow travelers aren't friends like she thought. They're...