Showing results by author "M. E. Kerr"

Shoebag likes his life as a cockroach. Like the others in his "tribe", he was named for the place of his birth - in his case, a white summer sandal. He enjoys living in a Boston apartment building with his parents, Drainboard and Under The Toaster, although they've lost countless relatives to jumping spiders, water bugs, beetles, and the deadly fumes of the dreaded exterminator. So when Shoebag discovers that he's been transformed into a person, he's horrified.

World War II is raging in Europe, but back home in Sweet Creek, Pennsylvania, Bud Shoemaker, a Quaker and a pacifist, has taken a one-man stand against the fight by declaring himself a conscientious objector. Fourteen-year-old Jubal sees his brother's choice as noble and brave, although most of the town (including Jubal's dream girl, Daria) sees Bud as a coward - or worse. The line between right and wrong has become alarmingly blurred, and it won't be long before Jubal's family begins to buckle as it struggles to cope with the consequences of Bud's decision.

This is one of those rare and unforgettable books that young adults remember long after they’ve grown up. M.E. Kerr combines romance and history into the story of a working class teenager who spends a summer falling in love with a rich girl and fending off accusations that his grandfather is a Nazi war criminal.

It was bad enough that they had to move to Brooklyn. Brooklyn Heights, as Tucker Woolf's dad instructs him to tell everyone after he loses his job. Now his father has suddenly developed an allergy to Tucker's cat, Nader, a nine-month-old calico Tucker found underneath a Chevrolet. Tucker's beloved pet finds a new home with overweight, outrageous Susan "Dinky" Hocker, the only person to answer Tucker's ad. As Tucker starts paying regular visits to Dinky's house to check up on Nader, his life begins to change.

I start my story with the day I first saw Jesse Pegler. That was when my whole life first started changing. Sixteen-year-old Opal Ringer is the daughter of Royal Ringer, the Pentecostal leader of a motley flock of down-on-their-luck believers. Jesse Pegler is the son of Brother Pegler. An "evangelist for Jesus", the elder Pegler is a flashy minister who appears regularly on television in his blue robes and gold tassels. Opal and Jesse meet at a faith healing at the Helping Hand Tabernacle church, where Opal's daddy preaches.

Stein, the new boy at Cayuta High, is nicknamed "Doomed" by classmates who never guess he'll soon be the school star. He invents a newspaper called REMOTE, with ads everyone wants to imitate. Before long, Stein, the nerd who seemed like a loser, is most WANTED himself, particularly by the girl dating the school's star jock, star writer, star everything! Sometimes he who looks like a wimp is a winner - big time!

After her mother runs off with her much-younger boyfriend, 14-year-old Flanders is shipped off to a boarding school in Virginia. On the train, she meets Carolyn Cardmaker, a preacher's daughter who will become her best friend. She also meets Ernestine Blue. Miss Blue is Flanders' faculty advisor at the Charles School, where each residence hall is named after a Charles Dickens novel. But Miss Blue's strict disciplinarian persona may be concealing a tragic past.

Sydney Skate considers himself shockproof. For as long as he can remember, he's known that his fashionable Manhattan mother is secretly a lesbian, although he's never let on that he knows. He spends his summer days caring for snakes at the local pet shop before leaving for college at Cornell, shrugging off his father's demands that he skip college and join the exciting world of swimming pool sales for suburbanites.

Life is going great for Seaville High senior Erick Rudd. He's a good student, he has a girlfriend he'll probably marry, and he's on a straight path to college. Then his best friend's girlfriend lets him know she's attracted to him. Seventeen going on 25, Nicki Marr is blond, green eyed, and gorgeous. Soon, Erick is seeing her on the sly. Guilt ridden over his deception, Erick isn't prepared for what happens next.

Even Parr admits that sometimes he thinks his sister looks a bit like a guy. His mother is always trying to get Evie to change and be more feminine. Then one day beautiful Patsy Duff befriends Evie, and she does begin to change - but not the way everyone had expected. With wry and compassionate strokes M.E. Kerr explores the dilemma of expressing one's sexual identity.

John Fell loves his family and gourmet cooking, and feels appropriately tormented by Keats, his rich girlfriend from the right side of the tracks. A normal life - normal, that is, until he meets Woodrow Pingree one night by ramming into the back of his Mitsubishi. Suddenly nothing will be the same. A poor boy is now a rich one at an exclusive prep school. A woman who's no longer a girl enters Fell's life with long kisses and no promises. He's paid to be someone he's not with a name that's no longer his own.

Christmas is coming, and Marshall, a black and yellow king snake who likes big words and live rats, and Irving, a twelve year old part German shorthaired pointer, are still accidental residents at Critters, an animal shelter in the Hamptons. Even word of Placido's umpteenth adoption doesn't cheer them up. The large, one-eyed Siamese usually "goes out" for only twenty-four hours before his new owners decide he should "come back." Still, this time might be different.

When a classmate at his exclusive private school falls to his death from a tower, 17-year-old John Fell is determined to find out whether the incident was suicide, accident, or murder.

A fateful car accident with a mysterious stranger sets a young man on a startling new path, tangled with promise, mystery, and danger. Presented with an offer too good refuse, working-class John Fell gives up his name to run with the rich kids at a fancy prep school. It’s a place ruled by an elite association of young men, whose members pledge to watch out for their own - for life. Soon, like it or not, Fell is drawn into a complicated world. And even when the last thing he wants to do is get involved, it seems that he already is.

Jessie Myrer is the daughter of the prison warden in Cayuta County, where there are few foreigners and even fewer Jews. Jessie's provincial views change when she meets her new across-the-street neighbor. At 15, sophisticated, German-born Elisa Stadler is a year older than Jessie. The girls would seem to have little in common, yet they soon become the best of friends. Then one night, they hear the music of the prison band's spellbinding solo bugler.

Little Little La Belle isn't redundant. She's a dwarf - a beautiful blond heiress who lives a pampered existence in the New York town named after her family. With her 18th birthday approaching, her parents want to marry Little Little off to the perfect man. Enter Sydney Cinnamon. Orphaned young, he went on to become one of America's most famous dwarfs. The pint-size TV performer could have his pick of any diminutive lady. But with Little Little, it's love at first sight.

I’d always think of it as the summer that I loved a girl... Seventeen-year-old Lang Penner and his mother are spending the summer in the caretaker’s cottage at Roundelay, the sprawling East Hampton estate of legendary rocker Ben Nevada. Lang passes the time walking on the beach and hoping for a glimpse of his idol. When they finally meet, Nevada is very different from the man Lang imagined. He finds himself confiding in the retired star about his homosexuality.

M.E. Kerr's beloved young adult novel tells the story of two very different teenagers, both struggling to stand up to their parents. Whether it's going to college instead of taking over the family funeral parlor, coming out in a town where homosexuality is considered demonic possession, or choosing between a life of fame or normalcy, the young characters in I'll Love You When You're More Like Me all bravely struggle to become who they want to be - even when they don't know themselves.

An ill-fated romance between a girl from the wrong side of the tracks and a boy from the richest family in a small upstate New York town has dire consequences for three generations. A gold ring, inscribed with "I Stay Near You", triggers a complex chain of events as it's passed down from one generation to the next.

To 16-year-old Gary Peel, Linger is home. His father is manager of the Pennsylvania restaurant; his mom takes care of the books; and Gary’s older brother, Bobby, works there as a waiter. That is, until he decides to join the army. The only one from their hometown to enlist, Bobby becomes an instant hero. At Linger, Gary takes Bobby's place waiting tables - and finds himself drawn into the correspondence between his brother and Lynn Dunlinger, the beautiful, preppy daughter of the restaurant's owner.