Rafe Khatchadorian's new year at middle school is starting to look depressingly like the old one, except that art class is going well--and when he joins the flag-football team and demonstrates some talent as a running-back, he discovers a way of dealing with his bullying nemesis and teammate, Miller the Killer.

Jill goes along with the rest of the fifth-grade class in tormenting a classmate and then finds out what it is like when she, too, becomes a target.

An unlikely friendship forms between a great white shark and a robot when they bond over a favorite book series, then stand--and dance--together against playground bullies.

"Doug is infested with the one creepy-crawly thing Harry hates: lice! Will Harry be able to help Doug get rid of them, or will Doug have to pack up and move to a new country instead?"--

Alec, a sixth-grade bookworm always in trouble for reading instead of listening and participating in class, starts a book club, solely to have a place to read, and discovers that real life, although messy, can be as exciting as the stories in his favorite books.

In the three years since the Virgil County High School Massacre, a story has grown up around one of the victims, Sarah McHale, that says she died proclaiming her Christian faith--but Leanne Bauer was there, and knows what happened, and she has a choice: stay silent and let people believe in Sarah's martyrdom, or tell the truth.

Mason Buttle is the biggest, sweatiest kid in his grade, and everyone knows he can barely read or write. Mason's learning disabilities are compounded by grief. Fifteen months ago, Mason's best friend, Benny Kilmartin, turned up dead in the Buttle family's orchard. An investigation drags on, and Mason, honest as the day is long, can't understand why Lieutenant Baird won't believe the story Mason has told about that day. Both Mason and his new friend,...

Faizah relates how she feels on the first day her sister, sixth-grader Asiya, wears a hijab to school.

"Gerald Creeper Jr. is a self-proclaimed pacifist, but he finds himself in the war zone when he starts his first year at Mob Middle School. At his new school, every monster in the Overworld is jockeying for power, and the skeletons seem to have it out for him. Armed with a 30-day plan, Gerald makes it his mission to use his brains--instead of his blasts--to survive the school year"--

At soccer camp, Soccer Sisters Makena and Val not only help Chloe build her self-confidence on the field, they also help her cope with arch rival Skylar Wrangle's bullying.