Rafe is learning to become a leader at long last. After a rough summer, Rafe is heading back to the dreaded Hills Village Middle School, the site of the very worst years of his life. He's learned that he's going to be held back a year unless he can prove himself on an outdoor survival excursion. Rafe and the rest of the pack of 'delinquent' trainees are forced to cooperate as they prepare for the final test: a solo excursion in the deep woods. Can Rafe come out of the experience in one piece?.
Middle schooler Rafe Khachadorian faces his greatest challenge yet as he struggles to complete a week-long wilderness survival course to prove to his school administrators that he can succeed.
Eleven-year-old Primrose living in a small fishing village in British Columbia recounts her experiences and all that she learns about human nature and the unpredictability of life in the months after her parents are lost at sea.
In 1905, ten-year-old Billy is taken from an orphanage to live with an aunt and uncle he never knew he had, and he enjoys his first taste of family life until his work in a coal mine and involvement with a union brings trouble, then he joins a circus in hopes of finding his father.
Leaving her best friend and the familiarity of Seattle for the paper mill town of "Stinkville," South Carolina, twelve-year-old Alice, who lives with albinism and blindness, takes on the additional challenge of entering the Stinkville Success Stories essay contest.
Penny Landlow, seventeen, the overprotected daughter of a powerful crime family, has rarely left the family estate due to a blood disorder but when tragedy strikes and she is left alone in New York City, she must prove she is not as fragile as everyone believes.
In 1874 Manhattan, Luc, sixteen, at nearly seven feet tall and seemingly impervious to pain, has become a local boxing star but when kangaroos are introduced to the ring, Luc's tender heart leads him to run away to save a joey.
After eighteen years of dealing with CIPA, which allows him to feel no pain or temperature, David Hart sets out with new friend Luna to complete his "bucket list," starting with finding the parents who abandoned him.
In rural Minnesota in 1974, thirteen-year-old Pride Star, raised to be independent, must accept help from friends and neighbors to care for eleven-year-old Nightingale and six-year-old Baby when her grandfather is hospitalized with a brain infection.
Deeply wounded by her embittered mother's lack of sympathy for her aspirations, Elnora finds comfort in the nearby Limberlost Swamp, whose beauty and rich abundance provide her with the means to better her life.
