There are twelve kids in the seventh grade at Fawn Creek Middle School. There are thirteen desks in the seventh-grade classroom. That's because Renni Dean's father got a promotion, and the family moved to Grand Saintlodge. Renni's desk is empty, but Renni still knows their secrets; is still pulling their strings. When Orchid Mason arrives and slips gracefully into Renni's chair, the other seventh graders don't know what to think. Orchid--who just...

"Bat grows anxious as his third-grade year comes to an end and the time to release his pet skunk, Thor, out into the wild approaches"--

"Twelve-year old Joy dreams of writing music for the movies, but first she has to survive her family's move into a small apartment when her father loses his job"--Title verso page.

"Dear Dad: Love, Nelson is a glimpse into the life, family, struggles, hopes, and questions of Nelson-and the more than five million other children in the US who have experienced parental incarceration. Told through letters he writes his father, Nelson shares his feelings, thoughts, wishes, and happenings, from the celebrations they've had to the progress Nelson has made on the car they were fixing to how excited he is to have Dad coming home." --publisher's...

"Rynn was born with a hole in her heart--literally. Although it was fixed long ago, she still feels an emptiness there when she wonders about her birth family. As her relationship with her adoptive mother fractures, Rynn finally decides she needs to know more about the rest of her family. Her search starts with a name, the only thing she has from her birth mother, and she quickly learns that she has a younger sister living in foster care in a nearby...

Illustrations and simple rhyming text show how the guiding hands of a family are always there to love and nurture a child, from birth to the first day of school.

Most people in Willow Hill think Darya is the prickliest of the Blok sisters. What they don't realize is that on the inside, Darya is soft and gooey from feeling everything, all the time. When Darya turns thirteen, the goo gets stickier -- and as Darya's Wishing Day approaches, all she wants is to forget the silly tradition ever existed. Except... she can't. Ten years ago, a wish made by Darya's mother splintered their family into pieces. Last year,...

"Thirty years after their disappearance, the previously frozen Willoughbys have thawed out and returned from the Alps, to the consternation of their children and grandchildren"--Title verso page.

When eleven-year-old Juniper begins to suspect something is wrong with her mother and father, she and her friend Giles discover they have been selling their souls, pieces at a time, to a silver-tongued creature in a terrifying fairy-tale underworld.

Sixth-grader Carter must adjust to the unwelcome presence of a know-it-all butler who is determined to help him become a gentleman, and also to deal with burdens from the past.