Ridgway Public Library

Minutes after the principal of Opportunity High School in Alabama finishes her speech welcoming the student body to a new semester, they discover that the auditorium doors will not open and someone starts shooting as four teens, each with a personal reason to fear the shooter, tells the tale from separate perspectives.

Two years after a tragedy saddles him with viral fame, twelve-year-old Simon O'Keeffe and his family move to Grin And Bear It, Nebraska, where the internet and cell phones are banned so astrophysicists can scan the sky for signs of alien life, and where, with the help of two new friends, a puppy, and a giant radio telescope, Simon plans to restart the narrative of his life.

The narrator was with her best friend, Sarah, when the Virgil County High School Massacre happened. She and Sarah were in the bathroom, and the story is that Sarah died after confessing her faith to the gunman. Sarah's parents are about to publish a book about it, so this is the narrator's last chance to tell her version of the truth--what did and did not happen, and why Sarah really died.

Told in text messages, middle-schooler Ava is having a really bad day: her parents are getting divorced, she has had a big argument with her best friends, and the charge on her cellphone is getting low; but things are about to get a lot worse because the lockdown alarm has just gone off, and there is an intruder in the school building.

"Moss Jeffries is many things--considerate student, devoted son, loyal friend and affectionate boyfriend, enthusiastic nerd. But sometimes Moss still wishes he could be someone else--someone without panic attacks, someone whose father was still alive, someone who hadn't become a rallying point for a community because of one horrible night ... Moss can't even escape at school--he and his friends are subject to the lack of funds and crumbling infrastructure...

Seven interwoven narratives spanning three tense hours on a fateful day share the perspectives of a girl with a rare memory condition, a teacher who fears a student may be planning an act of violence, and a girl about to embark on a cross-country plot. Delaware, the morning of April 19. Senior Skip Day, and April Donovans eighteenth birthday. Four days after the Boston Marathon bombing, the country is still reeling, and Aprils rare memory condition...

Seventeen-year-old Nikki has her hands full with being a high school senior, choosing the right Christian college, and her parents' failing marriage, but when someone sends threatening emails to several of her teachers, a police officer asks her to watch and listen for clues to the sender's identity.

After narrowly surviving two harrowing tragedies, Jules now fully understands the importance of the visions that she and people around her are experiencing, and that it is on Jules and Sawyer and their friends to once again prevent disaster.

Ten-year-old Caitlin, who has Asperger's Syndrome, struggles to understand emotions, show empathy, and make friends at school, while at home she seeks closure by working on a project with her father.