A group of foster children build a home of their own. A ghost saved twelve-year-old Maddie's life when she was an infant, her Granny Lane claims, so Maddie must always remember that she is special. But it's hard to feel special when you've spent your life shuffled from one foster home to another. And now that she's at the East Tennessee Children's Home, Maddie feels even less special. She longs for a place to call home. She even has a "book of houses"...

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.

From the author of Birds in the Air, a touching, big-hearted collection of short stories about women whose lives revolve around family, friends and quilt-making. "This collection presents the cozy comfort of characters we quilters easily recognize and relate to, but goes far deeper," writes Marianne Fons. "I was moved to tears repeatedly. Dowell's five short narratives are about the joys and sorrows inherent in the human condition - but with quilts...

Middle-schooler Isabelle Bean follows a mouse's squeak into a closet and falls into a parallel universe where the children believe she is the witch they have feared for years, finally come to devour them.

New York Times best-selling author Frances O'Roark Dowell has garnered the Edgar Award and the Christopher Medal for her keen-eyed, humorous fiction. Embarrassed by her family's offbeat lifestyle, Janie Gorman lives with her modern-hippy parents on a rustic goat farm. Smart, creative, and a bit quirky, Janie longs to be seen as normal. But having to milk goats every day is not helping her reach that goal.

Sixth grade is a MOST confusing time. Best friends aren't friends anymore. Worst enemies suddenly want to be partners in crime. And classmates you thought you knew have all sorts of surprising stuff going on. The kids in Mrs. Herrera's class are dealing with all these things and more--specifically, three more: 1. There's a new girl who just seems to be spying on them all and scribbling things in a notebook. Maybe she IS a spy? 2. Someone is stealing...

Marylin and Kate have been friends since nursery school, but when Marylin becomes a middle school cheerleader and Kate begins to develop other interests, their relationship is put to the test.

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.

Second-grader Sam Graham wants a cell phone to do research and share information but when his parents say no, he devises a new plan that starts a fad at school.

Second-grader Sam starts a detective club at school and, because there are no mysteries to solve, gets permission to seek the owners of three items from the lost and found closet.