Twelve-year-old Ellie's boring summer becomes exciting when she develops a crush on her new next-door neighbor, an older boy with a troubled past, whom her parents have forbidden her to see.
Confused by all of the males in her life, thirteen-year-old Alyssa "Blister" Reed wants to help when her best friend Jonah's quest for popularity lands him in deep trouble, but his desire to make her his girlfriend gets in the way.
After moving to a new town, Jonah, an eleven-year-old with a big imagination, reinvents himself as a talk show host, hoping this will somehow bring his absent father back.
After finally being promoted to fourth grade in the middle of the year, Joshua is so worried about the bully who rules the fourth grade boys that he makes some unwise decisions.
Contains a collection of essays and memoirs that explore what it is like to grow up in America. Includes writings by authors that include Nikki Giovanni, Joyce Carol Oates, and Alice Walker.
Two sixth graders with a pretend psychiatry practice come upon a small mute child from an orphanage and determine they are going to use all their knowledge to help her to talk.
Ben's troubles at school get progressively worse when he starts hanging around Trout, a new boy in his fifth grade class, who is also labeled as learning disabled.
