Mikaelsen, Ben

After soldiers kill his family, twelve-year-old Santiago and his four-year-old sister flee Guatemala in a kayak and try to reach the United States.

When sullen teenager Dylan Barstow is caught joyriding in a stolen car, he is sent to his ex-Marine uncle for the summer, but soon they are on the way to Papua, New Guinea, in search of a World War II fighter plane, and Dylan discovers that defiance is not a survival skill when you are lost in a jungle.

In two parallel stories, a fourteen-year-old boy who is NASA's first Junior Astronaut and a fourteen-year-old Maasai herder in Kenya both edge into maturity while questioning their family traditions.

After soldiers kill his family, twelve-year-old Santiago and his four-year-old sister flee Guatemala in a kayak and try to reach the United States.

Will the attack of the Spirit Bear destroy Cole's life or save his soul? Cole Matthews has been fighting, stealing, and raising hell for years. So his punishment for beating Peter Driscal senseless is harsh. Given a choice between prison and Native American Circle Justice, Cole chooses Circle Justice: He'll spend one year in complete isolation on a remote Alaskan island. In the first days of his banishment, Cole is mauled by a mysterious white bear and nearly dies. Now there's no one left to save Cole, but Cole himself.

Cole Matthews returns to civilization after his year of exile in the Alaskan wilderness and is ready to face high school, but when the school bullies begin to target his friend, Peter, Cole feels his rage once again coming to the surface and worries high school may prove harder to survive than the wilderness.

In 1922 Petey, who has cerebral palsy, is misdiagnosed as an idiot and institutionalized; sixty years later, still in the institution, he befriends a boy and shares with him the joy of life.

Cole Matthews returns to civilization after his year of exile in the Alaskan wilderness and is ready to face high school, but when the school bullies begin to target his friend, Peter, Cole feels his rage once again coming to the surface and worries high school may prove harder to survive than the wilderness.