Jerry Spinelli

After his parents die, Jeffrey Lionel Magee's life becomes legendary, as he accomplishes athletics and other feats which awe his contemporaries.

Even though his classmates from first grade on have considered him strange and a loser, Donald Zinkoff's optimism and exuberance and the support of his loving family do not allow him to feel that way about himself.

Still moping months after being dumped by her Arizona boyfriend Leo, fifteen-year-old Stargirl, a home-schooled free spirit, writes "the world's longest letter" to Leo, describing her new life in Pennsylvania.

A homeless young boy joins an unruly gang of Jewish street kids. The horrors of the Holocaust don't become evident until Misha and his friends are rounded up and confined to the Warsaw ghetto.

On Dead Wednesday, every eighth grader in Amber Springs is assigned the name and identity of a teenager who died a preventable death in the past year. The kids don black shirts and for the whole day everyone in town pretends they're invisible-as if they weren't even there. The adults think it will make them contemplate their mortality. The kids know it's a free pass to get away with anything. Worm Tarnauer feels invisible every day. He's perfectly...

Will Tuppence's life has always been ruled by science and common sense but in ninth grade, shaken up by the discovery that protons decay, he begins to see the entire world differently and gains new perspective on his relationships with his little sister and two closest friends.

A young boy and his family celebrate his favorite day, Independence Day, by seeing a parade, having a picnic, watching a talent show, and enjoying fireworks.

Cocky seventh-grade super-jock Crash Coogan got his nickname the day he used his first football helmet to knock his cousin Bridget flat on her backside. And he has been running over people ever since, especially Penn Webb, the dweeby, vegetarian Quaker kid who lives down the block. Through the eyes of Crash, readers get a rare glimpse into the life of a bully in this unforgettable and beloved story about stereotypes and the surprises life can bring....

Now that he is in the fourth grade, Suds learns that a fear of spiders or a babyish lunchbox will never get him into the coveted group, the Fourth Grade Rats.

A little boy ponders the many possible jobs in his future, from paper-plane folder and puppy-dog holder to mixing-bowl licker and tin-can kicker.