Bad Apple
"If I really wanted to open up, I'd confess that I really am the liar everyone believes I am."
Everyone thinks Tola Riley is crazy. Everyone except Mr. Mymer, her art teacher. He doesn't care about her green hair, or nose ring--and he gets her paintings and lets her hang out in the art room during lonely lunch periods.
Although Tola likes to keep to herself, when rumors start flying about an affair between her and Mr. Mymer, she is suddenly at the center of a scandal. The whole town is judging her--even her family. When Mr. Mymer is suspended, she has no choice but to break her silence. The question is, will anyone believe her?
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Laura Ruby is the Michael L. Printz Award-winning author of many books for adults, teens, and children, including Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All and Bone Gap, both National Book Award finalists; the ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults selection York: The Shadow Cipher and its sequels; the Edgar Award nominee Lily's Ghosts; and the Book Sense Pick Good Girls. She is on the faculty of Hamline University's MFA in writing for children and young adults program and lives in the Chicago area. You can visit her online at lauraruby.com.
"There's wit and cleverness as well as sympathy in both the writing and in the touches of fairy-tale allusion. This is both an absorbing read and a thought-provoking one." -- Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (starred review)
"A creatively constructed story with a modern-day scandal." -- Publishers Weekly
"A provocative premise, which is by turns hilarious and touching." -- Kirkus Reviews
"A clever, sardonic character study. Tola and her family are fascinating, quirky-yet-believable, and wholly likable. Visual artists will love this homage to creativity, and teens outside the status quo will find a kindred spirit in plucky Tola." -- Booklist
"[Tola] is an unusual and likable narrator. Readers will laugh, hurt, and roll their eyes along with this witty individualist of a heroine and her friends and supporters." -- School Library Journal
"Ruby's novel has plenty to distinguish it. Tola is one of a kind--a creative artist with a distinct worldview." -- The Horn Book
Praise for Good Girls: "Harrowing, honest and wickedly funny." -- Libba Bray, Printz Award winning author of Going Bovine
"Pervaded by melancholy, witty, frank about sex, at pains not to indulge in stereotyping, GOOD GIRLS will undoubtedly appeal to readers made savvy about the otherworld of American school life." -- Financial Times
"A frank, realistic portrayal of teen life." -- Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA) (starred review)
Praise for Play Me: "Guy lit with a brain and a heart, this has plenty to offer both romantics and cynics about love, film, and transformation." -- Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
"A good coming-of-age story where boy meets reality and discovers he may have to rethink the rest of the story." -- KLIATT
