When Jerome was alive, he kept his head low. He had troubles, but he didn’t get into trouble. There was a big difference. He would walk his little sister to school – not too fast, like they were running, but not too slow, like they were daring someone to stop them. He avoided bullies at school by eating lunch in Read More …
Sugar and her mom, Reba, live in a house with a white fence, green front door, and lilacs in the back yard. Sugar has two best friends and the world’s greatest 6th grade teacher, Mr. B. And now she has the cutest puppy, too, a little rescue dog named Shush. But she also has some serious problems at home. Her Read More …
Mason is the biggest kid in 7th grade. He’s always sweaty. And when he tries to read, the words just seem to slip off the page. His family has had some rough times lately. His mom died six years ago, hit by a car. Since then, instead of working, Uncle Drum has been selling off portions of the family’s apple Read More …
Chase Ambrose falls off a roof in the summer before eighth grade. He’s in a coma for four days and when he wakes up at the hospital, he has no memory of his life before the accident. Here’s what he learns about himself in the weeks before school starts: First of all, he’s a great athlete — there are newspaper Read More …
When they’re 14 years old, Wren and Darra end up cabinmates at a summer camp in Michigan. They’ve never met, exactly, but they share a secret history that changed both their lives. It all started six years earlier with Wren. She stays in the van listening to music and playing with her doll one day while her mom runs in to pay Read More …
Ted is a master at playing escape-the-room games on the computer. At the start of a game, it’ll show a room and there’s only one way out. He’s got to find the clues and puzzle out the solution. There might be a bunch of drinking glasses on a tray—at first it doesn’t look like there’s anything special about them, but Read More …
His name is Castle, but he prefers to be called Ghost. He’s a fast runner. He learned to be the night his dad tried to shoot him and his mom. Now his dad is in prison and his mom works extra shifts at the hospital. Ghost spends a lot of time on his own, watching people. One day he sees Read More …
For Penelope Torres, the first cardinal rule to follow when starting a new school is, “Don’t get noticed by the mean kids.” She fails at this on her very first day at Berrybrook Middle School. She trips in the hallway and spills all her stuff on the floor. A boy comes over to help pick up her things—nice of him, Read More …
Mark has always wanted to climb Mt. Rainier, but he’s been too sick. He got cancer for the first time when he was five, and it keeps coming back. Now he’s 13 and the doctors have just told him it’s back again. Mark packs a bag of gear, takes his dog Beau, and heads toward the mountain. He knows he Read More …
Twelve-year-old Anna is sitting outside the library in her grandma’s town when an old van pulls up. A lady wearing a bright pink shirt gets out. There’s a man in the driver’s seat and a girl about Anna’s age looking out the back window. The woman and man start shouting at each other in a foreign language. Anna knows how the girl must Read More …