Kristen Tracy

A young raccoon who claims to be a picky eater tries to fill his ferocious appetite as he makes his way through trash cans and compost bins.

The pressure is on for middle-schooler Bessica to be the funniest, wildest bear mascot for her school, or risk being humiliated by a rival tiger mascot.

Sixth-grader and yearbook photographer Perry's attempts to help fellow students backfire, her best friend Venice is focused on her boyfriend, and a boy she barely knows develops a crush on her.

"Half-Hazard is a book of near misses, would-be tragedies, and luck. As Kristen Tracy writes in the title poem, "Dangers here. Perils there. It'll go how it goes." The collection follows her wide curiosity, from growing up in a small Mormon farming community to her exodus into the forbidden world, where she finds snakes, car accidents, adulterers, meteors, and death-marked mice. These wry, observant narratives are accompanied by a ringing lyricism,...

Tess Whistle is a high school junior with ridiculous problems. But her problems are not catastrophes, because she is about to discover that even though things might seem ridiculous to her, she is finding out exactly who it is that she wants to be.