Clifton, Lutricia

Twelve-year-old Sammy's summer is full of complications, but he comes to appreciate what he already has even as he is working toward his long-held dream of owning a purebred puppy.

Twelve-year-old Cassie discovers that first impressions can be misleading--and potentially damaging--when she leaves her ritzy neighborhood in Austin, Texas, to spend the summer with her divorced father in his Winnebago camp trailer in Palo Duro Canyon State Park.

Twelve-year-old Frankie Joe Huckaby, forced to live with the father he never knew, a stepmother, and four half-brothers in Illinois, starts a delivery service to finance his escape back to his mother in Texas, not realizing he is making a better life for himself than he ever had with her.

Frankie Joe, forced to live with the father he never knew, a stepmother, and four half-brothers in Illinois, starts a delivery service to finance his escape back to his mother in Texas.