Twelve-year-old Rob does not like to read and stuffs most of the books his parents give him into his closet with the rest of his junk, but when he finds a funny little creature behind the door that seems to be a cross between Willy Wonka and Frankenstein, he begins to see that reading can be an adventure.
While researching a rumored-to-be-haunted grave for a local history project, twelve-year-old Lincoln Crenshaw unearths some startling truths about his own family.
In 1955 Hadley, Virginia, twelve-year-old Dawnie Rae Johnson, a tomboy who excels at baseball and at her studies, becomes the first African American student to attend the all-white Prettyman Coburn school, turning her world upside down. Includes historical notes about the period.
Moving from Brooklyn to a rental house in the country strains the relationship between eleven-year-old identical twins Hannah and Anna Zimmer, a situation made worse by the ghost of a girl who is trapped in the house because of problems with her own sister eighty years before.
Being sent to stay with grandparents he hardly knows is hard enough for twelve-year-old Eric, whose parents are deployed to Iraq, but his grandfather's hostility and the threat of losing the dog he rescues causes Eric to run away.
Emma and her siblings plot to keep their beloved nanny Annie from going on a three-week vacation and leaving them in the care of the totally uncool, animal-hating Mrs. Potts.
Eleven-year-old Calli, the third child in a family of busy high-achievers, likes to take her time and observe rather than rush around, and when she meets an awkward, insecure second-grader named Noah and is paired with him in the Peer Helper Program, she finds satisfaction and strength in working with him.
Second-grader Stink's parents tell him he must play a sport after he gets an unsatisfactory grade in physical education, and so he masters thumb wrestling, as seen on a sports channel.
When Nora's uncle loses his job and house in Texas, he and his family come to stay with Nora's family in Portland, Oregon, and Nora must try very hard to adjust to her cousin Ellie, who is loud, stubborn, and a tease.
