Jordan Sonnenblick

After being assigned to perform community service at a nursing home, sixteen-year-old Alex befriends a cantankerous old man who has some lessons to impart about jazz guitar playing, love, and forgiveness.

Although Jeff and Tad, encouraged by a new friend, Lindsey, make a deal to help one another overcome aftereffects of their cancer treatments in preparation for eighth-grade graduation, Jeff still craves advice from his older brother Stephen, who is studying drums in Africa.

Miserable because his only friend moved away and he has once again caused his baseball team to lose a game, fifth-grader Willy Ryan's life suddenly becomes a lot more interesting when he finds Dodger, a furry, blue chimpanzee that only he can see, and he has to decide what he really wishes for in life.

Maverick Falconer is just starting middle school and he wishes he were a hero like his father because maybe then he could deal with his mother's drinking and series of abusive boyfriends, not to mention the kids who bully him in middle school (pretty much the same ones who bullied him in elementary school)--but as the year passes he begins to realize that other kids have problems too, and maybe if they can all survive sixth-grade things will get better....

Based on the author's childhood this story is about young Jason who has to deal with several issues at school during his sixth-grade year.

"Popular young-adult authors weave together questions of identity, loss, and redemption into poignant tales for today's teens"--