Cash, Fitch, and Bird Thomas are three siblings in seventh grade together in Park, Delaware. In 1986, as the country waits expectantly for the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger, they each struggle with their own personal anxieties. Cash, who loves basketball but has a newly broken wrist, is in danger of failing seventh grade for the second time. Fitch spends every afternoon playing Major Havoc at the arcade on Main. And Bird, his twelve-year-old...

When all the second grade students must enter the science fair, which has global warming as its theme, best friends Ivy and Bean team up to create an unusual project.

Fifth-grader Kate tries to do it all when she promises a cake for her brother's birthday party and stages a rocket launch for her chemistry club.

When a wild new student, rumored to have fleas, is paired with the narrator for a science project, she proves there is a lot more to her--and her unusual family--than anyone could have guessed.

Antics ensue after Hank throws his report card into a meat grinder. It's science project time in Ms. Adolf's class. This is good news and bad news for Hank-he loves science, but he hates the report part. So Hank turns to TV to take his mind off things. But when the program directory scrolls by too quickly for Hank to know what's on, he decides to take apart the cable box to try to slow down the crawl. Great! Now Hank has found the perfect science...