Super Stock Rookie

After a couple of seasons of small-town racing, things are shifting into high gear for a young dirt-track driver with the skills to make it big. Trace Bonham has landed a corporate sponsor and a custom-built dream ride. But this means Trace can no longer pilot his dad's Street Stock Chevy, and must let a new kid get behind the wheel. It also means having to turn his back on his hometown speedway, which his team leaders think is a hayseed operation not worth their time, even though it's run by a girl who matters to Trace in a big way. Filled with authentic race-car action and detail, Will Weaver's fast-paced novel is the story of a boy struggling with the speed and demands of his own success.

Trace Bonham is living large as the teen driver for a pro Super Stock racing team. He's on billboards and on the road instead of stuck in school. And he's blowing away the competition wherever he races. But Trace is worried that those who think his crew is illegally "juicing" his engine may be right. It's up to him to discover what is going on--and what he's going to do about it.

In a small town in northern Minnesota, the much-anticipated Saturday night dirt-track race at the old-fashioned, barely viable Headwaters Speedway becomes, in many ways, an important life-changing event for all the participants on and off the track.

Ash is still falling from the sky two years after a series of globally devastating volcanic eruptions. Sunlight is as scarce as food, and cities are becoming increasingly violent as people loot and kill in order to maintain their existence. Sixteen-year-old Miles Newell knows that the only chance his family has of surviving is to escape from their Minneapolis suburban home to their cabin in the woods, As the Newells travel the highways on Miles' supreme invention, the Ali Princess, they have high hopes for safety and peace. But as they venture deeper into the wilderness, they begin to realize that it's not only city folk who have changed for the worse.

A shot of encouragement, a kick in the ass, and a loving push for young people who have no idea what they want or how to get it Career Rookie is a book for every grad, student, and 20-something who feels lost, overwhelmed, and anxious. It tackles the emotional and logistical WTF-ness of starting your career, answering questions like, What if I don’t have any experience? What if I went to school for something I hated? What if I have NO IDEA what I actually want? Should I just suck it up and settle? Because, honestly, this career thing is starting to give me an ulcer. This fresh, fun guide gives even the most lost and overwhelmed a way forward. It explores passion, curiosity, uncertainty, self-sabotage, and more on the quest to shake off post-graduation paralysis. Finding the right career can seem impossible, but Sarah Vermunt is the fun-loving, straight-talking coach we all need to make feel-good work a reality.

Jed and Laura, two popular Minnesota high school students, find their seemingly perfect lives suddenly in chaos when they discover that each has a parent who is having an affair with the other.

Rookie Reader, Level A.

Life is hard on a dairy farm in the heartland of Minnesota. Milking, haying, planting and harvesting leave little time for the thing Billy Baggs loves most--baseball. When Billy's father is sent to jail, the burden of providing for the family falls to Billy, and the long-awaited season of summer baseball becomes an impossibility. The sequel to the ALA Best Book Striking Out.

Battle in the Bullpen For as long as Billy Baggs can remember, rich townie and ace pitcher Archer "King" Kenwood has been his nemesis--both on the field and off. And the summer before they enter high school, their long-standing rivalry explodes into violence. Desperate to keep the peace between his two star players, Coach Anderson comes up with a plan: If they want to play, they have to pay--by spending a week together, twenty-four hours a day. But will Coach's plan make things better? Or just a whole lot worse? After a family tragedy on the farm, Billy Baggs’s life is finally back on track. He’s starting high school. He’s caught the eye of the baseball coach and even a few college scouts. He has prospects for a girlfriend—Suzy Langen, the catch of the ninth grade. But blocking Billy’s path is King Kenwood, town rich kid and ace pitcher. As the two boys’ rivalry turns violent, it is left to Coach Anderson to find a solution. In the process, both Billy and King come to find their real problems might lie closer to home—with their own fathers.