Best Selling Books by Beth Goobie

Every student at Saskatoon Collegiate knew that all the most important aspects of school life were controlled by a secret club called Shadow Council. Each fall, Shadow held a traditional lottery during which a single student''s name was drawn. The rest of the student body called the student the lottery winner. But Shadow Council knew better; to them, the winner was the lottery victim. Whatever the label, the fated student became the Council''s gofer, delivering messages of doom to selected targets. In response, the student body shunned the lottery winner for the entire year. This year''s victim was fifteen-year-old Sally Hanson.

Having barely survived a brain aneurysm two years earlier, fifteen-year-old Adrien, working at her Aunt Erin''s summer camp, is caught between the land of the living and the spirit world, unsure where she belongs. As she struggles to understand the message delivered by the spirits of the five young women that only she sees, she learns of the tragic consequences of their connection to her aunt. Faced with the knowledge that another aneurysm could strike her at any time and mostly shunned by the other staff because she is the boss''s niece, Adrien finds a soulmate in Paul, the camp handyman, who is convinced that he has seen his own death foretold.

No one knows why she hurt herself, least of all Skey. After five long months in treatment for self-destructive behavior, Skey continues to dream of dark tunnels with mysterious designs carved into their stone walls, a place where she is safe and alone. Then she encounters another dreamer, a boy her own age, dreaming the same dream, wandering the same tunnels. A boy with secrets much like her own. While trying desperately to remember what happened that sent her away and who the boy is that she met in the dream tunnels, Skey''s life plummets farther out of control. When she realizes her friends do not have her best interests at heart and they may be the reason she is lost, Skey must face her fears and the truth of the dream tunnels, and find her way back to solid reality.

Sophie is in a lot of trouble. She is on probation for stealing and is doing poorly at school. Her mom doesn''t really talk to her, and the other adults in her life are pressuring Sophie to talk about her bruises. Sophie worries that if she tells, she will be sent to live in a group home. Her friend Jujube is the only person who knows the truth, and now Jujube, too, wants Sophie to speak up.

Autobiographical in nature, breathing at dusk follows the journey of one girl as she escapes her childhood home and all of the painful memories that home elicits – her memories largely centered around the physical and sexual abuse she experienced as a child at the hands of her father and the untimely death of her brother. Years removed from these experiences now, Goobie is able to cast an unblinking eye on her relationship with her father, and looks back at her emotional journey with fiercely striking language. Often with a focus on classical music and the beauty in nature, this collection, while painful, is a moving and elegant testament to Goobie’s strength and resolve as she heals and grows and finally chooses joy.

She hadn''t told anyone. Not a single soul. Not one word about that night and what had been done to her had ever passed Maddy Malone''s lips. She''d thought about it at first - had been desperate, even frantic, to tell. But then had come the shame, and the intimidation from the boys who raped her - and the one who held her down. Now it''s the beginning of a new school year and Maddy is hoping that she can continue to hide, making herself as quiet and small as possible. She is consumed with keeping the memories at bay, forcing them down through small cuts and the burn from the end of a cigarette. But when her English class is given the assignment of writing a collaborative novel about a fifteen-year-old girl, The Pain Eater, fact and fiction begin to meet up. When the boys spread rumors about Maddy, she realizes that continuing to hide the truth will only give them more control, and she slowly gains the courage to confront them.

It''s 1977, and Mary-Eve Hamilton (Mary for the Mother of God, Eve for the mother of mankind) is plodding through her final year at Eleusis High School. Mary-Eve''s mother, famed prophetess at the Waiting for the Rapture End Times Tabernacle, regularly has visions, foams at the mouth, and falls down rigid. Her father, a popular deacon, hides his abuse behind a Sunday morning facade. Mary-Eve herself appears to be a dutiful teenager, her entire life regulated by the prescriptive rules of their church. Inside, she''s biding her time and waiting for emancipation from her family''s strictures and secrets. That day comes when Mary-Eve befriends Dee Eccles, an eighteen-year-old pagan goddess from the other side of everything. Dee instantly re-christens Mary-Eve with the name Jezebel, Jez for short, and begins her initiation into the women''s mysteries of makeup, tight jeans, and otherworldly glory. But Jez quickly learns that Dee has her own secrets, and that demons are not confined to the Waiting for the Rapture End Times Tabernacle.

Dime is fifteen and angry all the time. Her parents don''t like the way she dresses, her boyfriend, her attitude. Her older brother Darren was paralyzed in an accident she walked away from, and Dime is sure her parents wish she were the one in the wheelchair. When the fights and accusations finally become too much, Dime moves in with her brother. At first she is overjoyed with the change of scenery and lack of parental control. But when her troubles follow her she finds that maybe it isn''t everyone else who is the problem, and realizes that she has to start taking some responsibility for her actions.

Nellie Joanne Kinnan is an Advanced Cadet in the Black Core Program at the Detta training center. Weapons and violence are second nature to this twelve-year-old, but she is never exactly sure what it is she is being trained for. Nellie is a dedicated and skilled cadet. She knows she wants to serve the Goddess and the Empire. But there is so much that she doesn''t understand. When a weapons training session brings her face-to-face with her twin, Nellie''s world is thrown into turmoil. Suddenly she questions her commitment to the violence that has dominated her young life. As she slowly learns to trust her rebellious twin, she comes to realize that much of what she has been taught about life in both the Interior and the Outbacks is not true. Faced with this reality, Nellie must find new weapons and new strength in her struggle to continue to serve the Goddess.

No one knows why she hurt herself, least of all Skey. After five long months in treatment for self-destructive behavior, Skey continues to dream of dark tunnels with mysterious designs carved into their stone walls, a place where she is safe and alone. Then she encounters another dreamer, a boy her own age, dreaming the same dream, wandering the same tunnels. A boy with secrets much like her own. While trying desperately to remember what happened that sent her away and who the boy is that she met in the dream tunnels, Skey''s life plummets farther out of control. When she realizes her friends do not have her best interests at heart and they may be the reason she is lost, Skey must face her fears and the truth of the dream tunnels, and find her way back to solid reality.

Several years earlier Nellie and her mother fled the Interior and its hated security police for the Outbacks, a loose-knit resistance of small cities, towns and rural areas. Since then her mother has disappeared and twelve-year-old Nellie is on her own, scrounging a living where she can find it. When loneliness opens her mind to flux, the ability to alter her vibratory state in the molecular field, she learns to travel to other levels of reality. When a prank by the Skulls, an unruly gang of boys, reveals several large scars on her scalp, Nellie is forced to confront the terrifying truth that her vague memories of experiments that took place while she lived in the Interior are real. Befriended by fourteen-year-old Deller, leader of the Skulls, Nellie learns of the disappearance of his younger brother Fen. Using her ability to travel the levels, she eventually finds Fen trapped in an experimental laboratory deep in another reality. Although Nellie is unable to free him, her discovery precipitates a series of events that lead her and Deller back to the Interior, and straight into the memories she has been trying so hard to forget.

Key Selling Points New, enhanced features (dyslexia-friendly font, cream paper, larger trim size) to increase reading accessibility for dyslexic and other striving readers.

A young girl struggles with her negative self-image and feelings of being a victim, as she learns to assert herself for the first time in her life.

When Dylan Kowolski agrees to create a display for her high school library, she has no idea of the trouble it''s going to cause—for the school principal, her family, her boyfriend Cam and his jock friends, her best friend Jocelyn and for Dylan herself. If only her English class had been studying a normal, run-of-the-mill, mundane book like Lord of the Flies instead of Foxfire things wouldn''t have gotten so twisted. Then the world wouldn''t have gone into such a massive funk. And then Dylan wouldn''t have had to face her deepest fear and the way she was letting it run her life. Hello, Groin presents a compelling, realistic and refreshing look at teen sexuality and one girl''s struggle to make the difficult choices that face her.

Kelly Paddik is locked up. Sent to a secure facility because she is a "danger to herself," Kelly wants only to escape. But her painful past continues to haunt her until she is forced to face up to the most painful memory of all. A searing look at one girl''s struggle for self respect.

A nin-year-old boy sent to a group home by his mother, who can''t handle him any longer, learns to trust the people around him, and to talk about his fears despite his concern that his mother might not take him back.

A school Lovely Legs Contest sponsered by the football team erks Jill enough for her to join the competition to make her own unique contribution.

"In this unusual story Carol can see other dimensions, read people''s thoughts and influence their energy. She struggles between good and evil, and learns to claim her personal identity" Cf. Our choice, 1999-2000.