"Last year Rachel Riley was one of the most popular girls at East Middle School. This year she has become a social outcast. Anna Hunt is new at the school, and as a die-hard podcast enthusiast she knows there's always more to a story than meets the eye. Putting her fact-seeking skills to the test, Anna creates her own to find out what happened to Rachel Riley. With the entire eighth grade working against her, Anna dives headfirst into the evidence....

As Bridge makes her way through seventh grade on Manhattan's Upper West Side with her best friends, curvacious Em, crusader Tab, and a curious new friend--or more than friend--Sherm, she finds the answer she has been seeking since she barely survived an accident at age eight: "What is my purpose?"

For Merci Sur̀ez, eighth grade means a new haircut, nighttime football games, and an out-of-town overnight field trip. At home, it means more chores and keeping an eye on Lolo as his health worsens. It's a year filled with more responsibility and independence, but also with opportunities to reinvent herself. Merci has always been fine with not being one of the popular kids like Avery Sanders, who will probably be the soccer captain and is always...

Oscar has just lost his beloved younger sister to cancer, Noah is a genius who has been homeschooled all his life but has decided he wants to go to middle school, Riley is an artist who has just moved back to West Beacon with his mother after she was held up at gun point--they are three unlikely friends with troubles in their lives, but when they meet in their middle school pottery class, they begin to learn how to piece their lives back together...

Fearing that her humiliations will follow her to high school, Pipi McGee decides to right the wrongs of her early education and save others from being bullied.