Just Beyond — Tia Austin

Fifteen-year-old Lane is fed up with his boring and predictable life. Also, the pressure from his parents to always be the best has him frustrated, to say the least.

Danny is a shy freshman who loves to stay at home and listen to music or play board games with his younger sister. He hates going to school - and not just because some of his classes are boring - but because his stuttering has made him the target of the school bullies.

Halsey wishes her mom was still there - that she hadn't passed away. Now she has no choice but to live with her dad. Her parents were divorced when she was young, and she's hardly seen her father for the past twelve years. Needless to say, they don't have much of a relationship. Her dad seems to ignore her most of the time. Halsey tries anything she can think of to get him to pay attention to her. She dyes blue streaks in her hair. She gets extra piercings. But her dad doesn't get upset about it. He just seems to accept it and goes back out to the garage to work on his old clunker of a truck.

One day, Lane has an idea. He finds an interesting-looking fantasy book at the school library and, wanting some adventure, convinces his best friends Danny and Halsey to sneak out at night to the nearby woods to read it. But when Lane begins to read, the three of them get more than they bargained for.