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Suffering a hangover from a graduation party, eighteen-year-old Whitley is blindsided by the news that her father has moved into a house with his fianc?e, her thirteen-year-old daughter Bailey, and her son Nathan, in whose bed Whitley had awakened that morning.

Told from two viewpoints, Derek Fitzpatrick, kicked out of boarding school, must move with his stepmother to her childhood home in Illinois, where he meets Ashtyn Parker, who may be able to achieve her dream of a football scholarship with bad boy Derek's help.

Sixteen-year-old Callie Knowles fights her compulsion to write constantly, even on herself, as she struggles to cope with foster care, her mother's life in a mental institution, and her belief that she killed her father, a minister, who has been missing for a year.

Four years after Theo's best friend, Donovan, disappeared at age thirteen, he is found and brought home and Theo puts her health at risk as she decides whether to tell the truth about the abductor, knowing her revelation could end her life-long dream of becoming a professional ballet dancer.

Inspired by her late grandmother, thirteen-year-old Nina spends a summer secretly doing good deeds for her neighbors and enjoying the changes she brings about, even as she is dealing with changing friendships and family issues.

In a small town near Chicago in 1953, twelve-year-old Tommy faces escalating problems at home, among his Catholic school friends, and with the threat of a communist living nearby, but taking over his hospitalized sister's paper route introduces him to neighbors who he comes to rely on for help.

Twelve-year-old Lily, believing she could have prevented the accident that caused her brother's death, has quit speaking leaving everyone to think that she is brain damaged, but in her silence she sees everything, and when sly newcomer Tinny comes to town, Lily suddenly has a lot to talk about--if only she can make herself speak the words.

Mr. Geo introduces the reader to the state of Illinois, including Chicago, the Cahokia Mounds, and Starved Rock State Park.

Contains unabridged editions of two memorials presented to the Illinois legislature in 1846-47 by humanitarian and reformer Dorothea Dix, in which she pleaded her case for the humane care and effective treatment of the mentally ill in Illinois; and includes a selection of newspaper articles she wrote detailing conditions in the jails and poorhouses of Illinois communities.

"Shortly after spontaneously morphing into a giant mutant dinosaur, 12-year-old Charlie Drinkwater discovers he's not the only creature in town"--Provided by publisher.

Introduces ten sites located in Illinois while discussing the history of the state.

Third-grader Anna has had trouble making friends since her family moved from a small town in New York to Chicago, but a group project at school leads to new opportunities, including friendships, a club, and a garden she can work in, just like in her last home.

Told from his point of view, continues the love story of Bennett, a time traveler from 2012 San Francisco, and Anna, sixteen, of 1995 Evanston, Illinois, as they try to make their relationship work despite his fear that it is not meant to be.

Through archival photographs and informational text, highlights gangsters in Chicago during the 1920s and the politicians who allowed organized crime to thrive in the city.