Sharon Creech

After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother's route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also left.

In the little town of Blackbird Tree live two orphan girls: one Naomi Deane, brimming with curiosity, and her best friend, Lizzie Scatterding, who could talk the ears off a cornfield. Naomi has a knack for being around when trouble happens. For she knows all the peculiar people in town--like Crazy Cora and Witch Wiggins and Mr. Farley. But then, one day, a boy drops out of a tree. The strangely charming Finn boy. Then the Dingle Dangle man appears,...

Imaginative, eleven-year-old Gina, her mysterious new neighbor, Antonio, and their classmates are inspired by an unusual young teacher to see who they are and envision who they are meant to become.

Thirteen-year-old fraternal twins Dallas and Florida have grown up in a terrible orphanage but their lives change forever when an eccentric but sweet older couple invites them each on an adventure, beginning in an almost magical place called Ruby Holler.

While preparing for a role in the school play, twelve-year-old Leo finds an autobiography that his father wrote as a teenager and ponders the ways people change as they grow up. Includes the text for the play, "Rumpopo's Porch."

Thirteen-year-old Mary Lou grows up considerably during the summer while learning about romance, homesickness, death, and her cousin's search for his biological father.

My second life began when I was kidnapped by two complete strangers . . .

That the kidnappers are actually Aunt Sandy and Uncle Max makes no difference to thirteen-year-old Domenica Santolina Doone, better known as Dinnie—she just doesn't want to go. Dinnie's accustomed to change, with her family constantly moving for "opportunity"—but when her aunt and uncle whisk her far away to an international school in Switzerland, she's

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Two orphaned peasant children discover a mysterious pouch, the contents of which lead them to the majestic Castle Corona, where their lives may be transformed forever.

Twelve-year-old Annie ponders the many rhythms of life the year that her mother becomes pregnant, her grandfather begins faltering, and her best friend (and running partner) becomes distant.

"Mr. Keene loved being the principal of his fine, fine school. He was so proud of his students drawing and painting and reading and singing that he thought his buttons would burst! Then one day his appendix burst, and a new principal, Mr. Tatters, swooped in to take his place. Mr. Tatters said, 'In order to be a smart, smart school, we will have lots and lots of tests.' And suddenly there were no more cards and banners, posters and songs. Instead,...