Francisco X. Stork

"You know I'm coming. You're dead already."Hector has always minded his own business, working hard to make his way to a better life someday. He's the chess team champion, helps the family with his job at the grocery, and teaches his little sister to shoot hoops overhand.Until Joey singles him out. Joey, whose older brother, Chavo, is head of the Disc pulos gang, tells Hector that he's going to kill him: maybe not today, or tomorrow, but someday. And Hector, frozen with fear, does nothing. From that day forward, Hector's death is hanging over his head every time he leaves the house. He tries to fade into the shadows -- to drop off Joey's radar -- to become no one.But when a fight between Chavo and Hector's brother Fili escalates, Hector is left with no choice but to take a stand.The violent confrontation will take Hector places he never expected, including a reform school where he has to live side-by-side with his enemy, Joey. It's up to Hector to choose whether he's going to lose himself to revenge or get back to the hard work of living.

What does it mean to be illegal in the United States?Life in Mexico is a death sentence for Emiliano and his sister Sara.To escape the violent cartel that is after them, they flee across the border, seeking a better life in the United States and hoping that they can find a way to bring their pursuers to justice.Sara turns herself over to the authorities to apply for asylum.Emiliano enters the country illegally, planning to live with their father.But now Sara is being held indefinitely in a detention facility, awaiting an asylum hearing that may never come, finding it harder every day to hold on to her faith and hope. Life for Emiliano is not easy either. Everywhere he goes, it's clear that he doesn't belong. And all the while, the cartel is closing in on them...Emiliano sets off on a tense and dangerous race to find justice, but can he expose the web of crimes from his place in the shadows?Award-winning author Francisco X. Stork's powerful follow-up to Disappeared delves with his usual sensitivity into the injustice that hides under the guise of the law in the United States. This is a timely and moving story that takes an unsparing look at the asylum process and the journey to find a new life in the US.

“Who better to raise teens’ awareness of mental illness and health than the YA authors they admire?” —Booklist (starred review) “[A] much-needed, enlightening book.” —School Library Journal (starred review) Your favorite YA authors including Ellen Hopkins, Maureen Johnson, and more recount their own experiences with mental health in this raw, real, and powerful collection of essays that explores everything from ADD to PTSD.Have you ever felt like you just couldn’t get out of bed? Not the occasional morning, but every day? Do you find yourself listening to a voice in your head that says “you’re not good enough,” “not good looking enough,” “not thin enough,” or “not smart enough”? Have you ever found yourself unable to do homework or pay attention in class unless everything is “just so” on your desk? Everyone has had days like that, but what if you have them every day? You’re not alone. Millions of people are going through similar things. However issues around mental health still tend to be treated as something shrouded in shame or discussed in whispers. It’s easier to have a broken bone—something tangible that can be “fixed”—than to have a mental illness, and easier to have a discussion about sex than it is to have one about mental health. Life Inside My Mind is an anthology of true-life events from writers of this generation, for this generation. These essays tackle everything from neurodiversity to addiction to OCD to PTSD and much more. The goals of this book range from providing a home to those who are feeling alone, awareness to those who are witnessing a friend or family member struggle, and to open the floodgates to conversation.

* "A tense thriller elevated by Stork's nuanced writing and empathy for every character, including the villains -- superb." -- Kirkus Reviews, starred reviewFour Months AgoSara Zapata's best friend disappeared, kidnapped by the web of criminals who terrorize Ju rez.Four Hours AgoSara received a death threat -- and with it, a clue to the place where her friend is locked away.Four Weeks AgoEmiliano Zapata fell in love with Perla Rubi, who will never be his so long as he's poor.Four Minutes AgoEmiliano got the chance to make more money than he ever dreamed -- just by joining the web.In the next four days, Sara and Emiliano will each face impossible choices, between life and justice, friends and family, truth and love. But when the criminals come after Sara, only one path remains for both siblings: the way across the desert to the United States.Award-winning author Francisco X. Stork delivers his most gripping novel yet in this tense and timely international thriller.

Now in paperback: This beautiful novel from the author of Marcelo in the Real World about life after a suicide attempt is perfect for fans of Gayle Forman and Thirteen Reasons Why.When Vicky Cruz wakes up in the Lakeview Hospital Mental Disorders ward, she knows one thing: After her suicide attempt, she shouldn't be alive. But then she meets Mona, the live wire; Gabriel, the saint; E.M., always angry; and Dr. Desai, a quiet force. With stories and honesty, kindness and hard work, they push her to reconsider her life before Lakeview, and offer her an acceptance she's never had.But Vicky's newfound peace is as fragile as the roses that grow around the hospital. And when a crisis forces the group to split up, sending Vicky back to the life that drove her to suicide, she must try to find her own courage and strength. She may not have them. She doesn't know.Inspired in part by the author's own experience with depression, The Memory of Light is the rare young adult novel that focuses not on the events leading up to a suicide attempt, but the recovery from one -- about living when life doesn't seem worth it, and how we go on anyway.

When Vicky Cruz wakes up in the Lakeview Hospital Mental Disorders ward, she knows one thing: She can't even commit suicide right. But there she meets Mona, the live wire; Gabriel, the saint; E.M., always angry; and Dr. Desai, a quiet force. With stories and honesty, kindness and hard work, they push her to reconsider her life before Lakeview, and offer her an acceptance she's never had. But Vicky's newfound peace is as fragile as the roses that grow around the hospital. And when a crisis forces the group to split up, sending Vick back to the life that drove her to suicide, she must try to find her own courage and strength. She may not have them. She doesn't know. Inspired in part by the author's own experience with depression, The Memory of Light is the rare young adult novel that focuses not on the events leading up to a suicide attempt, but the recovery from one -- about living when life doesn't seem worth it, and how we go on anyway.;* A stellar choice for any library serving teens. -- School Library Journal, starred review * T]his important story of a teenager learning to live with clinical depression is informative and highly rewarding. -- Booklist, starred review The Memory of Light is filled with hard truths and beautiful revelations. It's a beacon of hope for those in the dark of depression. This book just might save your life. -- Stephanie Perkins, New York Times bestselling author of Isla and the Happily Ever After The Memory of Light takes you to that strange, cold planet that is depression. Vicky's journey back from the darkness doesn't simplify or sentimentalize the pain of mental illness. Francisco Stork has shows us the universe of the human mind, how it can be terrifyingly dark--and how, in the company of the right sort of heart--infinitely dazzling. -- Martha Brockenbrough, author of The Game of Love and Death This is an honest look at recovery, about finding a way out from rock bottom, and about learning that the process of living with a mental illness is just that: a learning process. A solid, powerful story. -- Kelly Jensen, blogger at Stackedbooks.orgPraise for Marcelo in the Real World: A] brisk, brilliant, unsentimental novel. -- Robert Lipsyte, New York Times Book Review;Francisco X. Stork is the author of Marcelo in the Real World, winner of the Schneider Family Book Award for Teens and the Once Upon a World Award; The Last Summer of the Death Warriors, which was named to the YALSA Best Fiction for Teens list and won the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award; Irises; and The Memory of Light, which received four starred reviews. He lives near Boston with his wife. You can find him on the web at www.franciscostork.com and @StorkFrancisco.

The paperback edition of one of the most acclaimed novels of the year -- a love story & legal drama that received five starred reviews and multiple honors.The term "cognitive disorder" implies there is something wrong with the way I think or the way I perceive reality. I perceive reality just fine. Sometimes I perceive more of reality than others.Marcelo Sandoval hears music that nobody else can hear -- part of an autism-like condition that no doctor has been able to identify. But his father has never fully believed in the music or Marcelo's differences, and he challenges Marcelo to work in the mailroom of his law firm for the summer . . . to join "the real world."There Marcelo meets Jasmine, his beautiful and surprising coworker, and Wendell, the son of another partner in the firm. He learns about competition and jealousy, anger and desire. But it's a picture he finds in a file a picture of a girl with half a face that truly connects him with the real world: its suffering, its injustice, and what he can do to fight.