Dancing In Red Shoes Will Kill You by Dorian Cirrone (HarperCollins, 2005). Kayla is one of the strongest dancers at her performing arts school, but there’s just one problem. Or, well, two. Kayla’s busty–in a double D/needs-to-wear-three-bras kind of way–and the world of ballet has a very specific body type preference. Will she get surgery? Push back against societal expectations?

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Far From Xanadu by Julie Anne Peters (Little Brown, 2005). Between working out, playing softball, and keeping up the plumbing business her dad left behind, Mike’s days in Coalton, Kansas are if not full, at least familiar. Then one day, she walks into class. Xanadu. The most beautiful, smart-ass, conflicted girl in the world. Mike falls fast,

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“Real Texans do not use the word ‘summer’ as a verb.”
—Molly Ivans
I’m a visiting faculty member for the Vermont College MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults program summer residency, along with author Rita Williams-Garcia and author/editor Marc Aronson, but incoming guest faculty aren’t the only visitors.

Others include: author/editor/commentator/educator Michael Cart;

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I Am The Wallpaper by Mark Peter Hughes (Delacorte Press, 2005). Floey’s nothing but “the wallpaper” compared to her sister Lilian who “always had to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.” But all that’s over now, at least if Floey herself has anything to say about it. New Floey, future Floey is on the rise,

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