Frank, Lucy

While spending his Christmas vacation in New York City with his father and new stepfamily, twelve-year Lucas meets a rebellious agent of the secret Annoyance Bureau, which exists to control or eliminate all sources of annoyance in the modern world.

Thirteen-year-old Katya convinces her parents to try homeschooling her for a month, but while she is finally excited about learning--and about Milo, the violin prodigy who lives nearby--not everything works out as she had hoped.

Although her ailing uncle creates problems for her whole family when he moves in with them, Joy survives his bungling attempts at matchmaking even as she plays the game herself.

An aspiring sixteen-year-old cellist falls in love with her friend's older brother and finds that the relationship is moving too quickly.

In the summer before seventh grade, twelve-year-old Iris Diaz-Pinkowitz goes up and down the fire escape outside her new New York City apartment, becoming an integral part of the lives of her human and animal neighbors.

Music entwines Kira, a thirteen-year-old singer who hates that her father makes her perform for money on New York City subway platforms; Eugene, the class clown; and Jake, who longs to sing and to approach Kira, but feels held back by his stuttering.