All About Books: Resiliency - Orca Soundings

Just when sixteen-year-old Cameron thinks he's going to straighten out his troubled life, his parents break up and he ends up living on the street with his dog, Ozzie. He meets a girl named Mackenzie, who has been sleeping in a pup tent in the park. With her help, he tries to survive on the street and continue with school, despite the new challenges in his life.Finding a safe place for them to crash at night is difficult, and panhandling for money isn't as easy as it looks. Cameron learns that Mackenzie has her own emotional baggage to deal with, and life for a kid with a dog and no home gets even more challenging. After Mackenzie gets into some real trouble, Cameron realizes he needs to come up with a realistic solution if they are going to survive the turbulence.

Four kids. One mountain.They come from all across America to be the youngest kid ever to climb Everest. But only one will reach the top first. The competition is fierce. The preparation is intense. The challenge is breathtaking. When the final four reach the higher peaks, disaster strikes -- and all that separates the living from the dead is chance, bravery, and action.

Since his girlfriend dumped him, Jayden has been avoiding school-and life in general. When his eccentric uncle Mel invites him to help with his biology research at an Australian university, he figures he has nothing to lose. Once he arrives, he discovers Mel is obsessed with finding a new species of lizard and is determined to be the first to discover it. Unfortunately, this means an expedition into the scorching desert heat of the Australian outback...with the increasingly paranoid Mel and an unfriendly biology student named Natalie. Then disaster strikes, and Jayden and Nat find themselves many miles from civilization fighting for their survival.

Jill took a job which sounded perfect for the summer, guiding tourists on trail rides in the beautiful mountains. She didn't realize that the money was terrible, the hours long and the coworkers insufferable. After a blow-up with her boss, she takes a single man into the mountains for a ride, only to find that he is a dangerous killer. When Jill fights back and manages to escape, she is in a desperate race to survive and make it to safety.

When Jack develops an interest in something, he puts his all into it, making lists, doing research and learning all he can. When his best friend Leah decides to have plastic surgery for her sixteenth birthday, Jack is horrified--and then determined to stop her. Researching the surgery and the results, he finds that there are unscrupulous surgeons operating on the very young, and no one does anything about it. Jack organizes a protest and becomes an instant celebrity. But when someone else takes up the cause and the protest turns violent, Jack is forced to make some tough decisions.

As far as Zane knows, today is just another boring day at his boring gas-station job. Until he gets carjacked by a masked gunman. Zane has no idea where they're going or what will happen when they get there. All he knows is that the lunatic in the passenger seat has a gun aimed at him. Zane tries to reason with the guy, and when that fails, he tries a couple of daring stunts to get free, but they backfire. They've been on the road for a long time before Zane's fear starts to ease just a little, enough for his curiosity to take over. His captor has had several opportunities to hurt him or punish him for trying to get away, but he hasn't. Zane starts to wonder who this guy is. And what he really wants.

Lucas and his father are not close. In fact they hardly see each other, which is just fine with Lucas. When he travels to the remote fishing lodge his father manages, Lucas is left once again, this time with a lodge worker, a girl named Sumi. She makes it pretty clear that Lucas is on his own. But she does take him fishing and seems to be warming up to him. Then, in a horrible sequence of misjudgments, Sumi is shot in the foot. With no radio and no phone, Lucas and Sumi are truly alone. Fog rolls over the islands and it's up to Lucas to get Sumi to medical help, a day's journey by boat up the inlet.

When Ian and his classmates watch a documentary about the health concerns of eating fast food, Ian decides to start a boycott and stop everyone he can from eating at Frankie's, a huge fast-food chain with a questionable menu. The boycott takes off and Frankie's gets concerned. The company's lawyers threaten Ian and his friends and try to force them to stop the boycott. Ian must convince others that the boycott is a good idea. Can Ian stand up for what he believes in? Can you take on a corporate behemoth and win?