Dowell, Frances O'Roark

Sam is a fan of dragons and monster trucks. When the family minivan needs replacing, Sam has the perfect plan: get a family monster truck instead!.

When seven-year-old Sam Graham, eager for some spending money, volunteers to look after a neighbor's chickens, the experience inspires him to get his own chicken--a special bird named Helga.

Best friends Marylin and Kate compete for limited school resources when Kate helps her boyfriend seek funding for the Audio Lab, while Marylin covers her interest in the student body president by claiming she only wants his support for new cheerleading uniforms.

When her brother is sent to fight in Vietnam, twelve-year-old Jamie begins to reconsider the army world that she has grown up in.

"Sam the Man is not a vegetable man. But when a school project has him paired up with the worst of all the vegetables--the rutabaga--he soon will learn that it's not half bad. And as he grows fond of his new little friend, Sam the Man will have to come up with plan on how to keep him happy before he rots!"--Provided by publisher.

In the segregated south of Kentucky in 1953, twelve-year-olds Callie, who is black, and Wendell, who is white, are brought together by an old dog that is clearly seeking something or someone, but they not only face prejudice, they find trouble at a haunted cabin in the woods.

In a series of letters to her cousin, twelve-year-old Arie Mae relates her life in a mountain valley of North Carolina in the 1920s.

Sam the Man has a new school project. He has to "babysit" a vegetable, the worst of all vegetables--a rutabaga. But, he will soon learn that the rutabaga is not half bad. He grows fond of his new little friend and comes up with a plan on how to keep him happy until he rots.