middle-born children

Victoria Torres is not the best math student, so when her older sister, Sofia, captain of their middle school math team, co-opts her to fill in for a team member who quit Vicka is not sure how to feel--she would certainly like to help the team win the conference trophy, but first she must get Sophia to see that it is her aggressive bossiness that is alienating the other team members.

Victoria Torres is the fifth chair out of nine flutes in her middle school band, so when the director asks for a someone to play the new piccolo, Victoria sees it as her chance to stand out--but her best friend Bea has also volunteered, and their friendship may not survive the competition when they audition for the part.

Second-grader Freddy hates being the middle one in the family until he gets a part in the school play.

Every year the fourth grade has to do a plan and complete a service project for the school and community, and after a particularly unappetizing school lunch Finley suggests that they should plant a vegetable garden--but when the radishes she and her friends Henry and Olivia plant take too long to sprout she gets very frustrated.

Now in seventh grade Gregory K. is frustrated by all the homework that leaves him no time for writing, which is what he loves to do--so he decides to go on a homework strike, and with his history teacher's encouragement he learns a valuable lesson in civics and standing up for what you believe in.

When Finley decides that fashion is just wearable art, she sets out to create a new fad with her friend Henry: a forklet, a bracelet you can both wear and eat with and only one dollar each for her classmates--unfortunately her parents do not appreciate the disappearing silverware, and Finley has to rethink her invention.

Curious's hypothesis of the week is "the quieter you are, the more you can hear" and she plans to put it to work as her fourth-grade class is being tested for musical ability, because she really cannot sing, and she does not want to play the clarinet like her three older sisters.

When the lights go out in her house fourth-grader and middle child Curious starts to consider the whole phenomenon of electricity and how it is created--but one of her younger brothers, John Glenn McCarthy, sees her scientific research as an opportunity for practical jokes.

In her first week in fourth grade (exiled to a new school because of redistricting) Curious decides that she wants to be a scientist, and her first task is to sharpen her powers of observation by observing her large family, three older sisters and three younger brothers--and try and become effectively invisible in her new class.

Middleton Middle School is holding class elections and the sixth-grade's candidates are Henry, who is running on a dare, and super bossy Annelise, so Victoria decides to add her name to the election, hoping she can actually do some good for the school.