Nixon, Joan Lowery

Twelve-year-old Maggie, living with her grandmother in Houston, joins the drama club at school, wins a part in a play, begins to make friends, and learns to deal with feelings of loneliness, selfishness, being in love, and having an unusual family life and background.

Brian and Sean Quinn are two kids with a cool hobby: they're private detectives. After a worker is injured in an old downtown theater, Brian and Sean snap into action to find out what might have happened.

"It's 1861, and although Mike Kelly is far younger than the legal age of sixteen, he dreams of fighting with the Union Army. Mike and his best friend, Todd, secretly train to become army drummer boys and join up with the Second Kansas Infantry. Mike's dreams of glory end when he's wounded at the bloody Battle of Wilson's Creek and must begin a dangerous adventure behind enemy lines.

Lia seeks to rid the old plantation house in the Louisiana countryside of the evil that haunts it after her mother inherits it.

When she visits her great-uncle, a successful and self-centered author, at his fortress-like home on Catalina Island, fifteen-year-old Samantha becomes involved in his manipulative game that leads to murder.