single-parent families

Fourteen-year-old LaVaughn, trying to earn the money for college, takes a job caring for the two children of Jolly, a single teenage mom, and must find the courage to make the right decision for all of them after Jolly is fired.

Determined not to be weird all his life like his neighbor, Charley Maplewood decides to throw himself a tenth birthday party, complete with a "house of horrors" theme, but first he will have to make some friends to invite.

Thirteen-year-old Conor awakens one night to find a monster outside his bedroom window, but not the one from the recurring nightmare that began when his mother became ill--an ancient, wild creature that wants him to face truth and loss.

Ten-year-old Jake forms an unexpected bond with his estranged grandfather after his mother's injury puts the pair together in time for the Christmas holiday.

In 1910, just before the Earth passes through the tail of Halley's Comet, thirteen-year-old Hope McDaniels, whose father is a magician in a traveling vaudeville show, tries to earn enough money to quit the circuit by selling "anti-comet pills," with the help of fellow-performer Buster Keaton.

Agents and lawyers come knocking after Troy leads his football team, the Atlanta Falcons, to the Georgia State Championship, but his life gets complicated when one of the lawyers turns out to be the father he never knew.

Fashion-loving twelve-year-old Tess moves with her deaf younger brother and impulsive single mother to Schenectady, New York, where they open an ice-cream shop and lead a campaign for urban renewal.

In this novel written in verse, Josie, who has cerebral palsy, befriends a boy who moves into a house behind her old farmhouse.

Leon, a fourth grader at The Ethical School, tries to outwit the school bully and learn to sew for fanatical teacher Miss Cronheim, with unexpected help from his final project-- a doll with magical powers.

After twelve-year-old Violet's father divorces her mother, Violet devises ways to snag the perfect man, George Clooney, to be her mother's new husband.