Hank, Nathan, Jeremy, and Anabel deal with the realities of middle school basketball, including family pressure, a series of coaches with very different personalities and agendas, and what it means to be a team--and a friend.
Elephant offers to store the grain of his best friend, Rat, in his house to stop thieves during a drought, but ends up stealing it himself, causing Rat, who is the only animal who knows how to make fire, to run away.
In her Bangladesh village, ten-year-old Naimi excels at painting designs called alpanas, but to help her impoverished family financially she would have to be a boy--or disguise herself as one.
After her father leaves the family farm on Lost Mountain to be General Lee's guide, Addie finds ways to remember him-- even when he does not return at the end of the war.
In mid-twentieth-century England, fourteen-year-old Velvet Brown, determined to turn the unruly horse she wins in a raffle into a champion, learns that she needs more than hard work and dedication to achieve her goal of riding her horse in the Grand National steeplechase.
Eleven-year-old Melanie records in her diary how she rediscovers her hometown of Manhattan, copes with competing for her best friend's attention, enjoys a litter of baby mice, and anxiously awaits email from her Spanish friend, Miguel.
With help from her new friend Ryan, thirteen-year-old Cassie explores the mysteries surrounding a mansion in Maine that was once an Underground Railroad stop and is now a retirement home.
