When armed thugs crash into the house and take them away to a cabin in the woods, babysitter Amy realizes she and little Kendra have become pawns in a dangerous ransom plot and so must find a way for the two of them to escape safely before their captors make their next move.

Nate Wright is an eleven years old sixth grader who has the distinction of setting the record for school detentions.

During the 1967 school year, on Wednesday afternoons when all his classmates go to either Catechism or Hebrew school, seventh-grader Holling Hoodhood stays in Mrs. Baker's classroom where they read the plays of William Shakespeare and Holling learns much of value about the world he lives in.

"Beverly Tapinski has run away from home plenty of times, but that was when she was just a kid. By now, she figures, it's not running away. It's leaving. Determined to make it on her own, Beverly finds a job and a place to live and tries to forget about her dog, Buddy, now buried underneath the orange trees back home; her friend Raymie, whom she left without a word; and her mom, Rhonda, who has never cared about anyone but herself. Beverly doesn't...

"If the stories that come out of Afghanistan are ever to contain hope for the future, then the young people that readers will meet in these pages are that hope. From street workers to female students in newly formed academies, children who work in family businesses, and pickpockets who steal from visiting photographers, these are the faces of young Afghanis who universally wish for peace in their neighborhoods, in their country, in their lifetimes."--Publisher's...

After his mother bribes him into reading a self-help book on how to form satisfying relationships and enjoy a happy life, cynical seventh-grader Kyle finds there may be more to the book than he realized.

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.

While working as summer employees in a local pizza parlor, three teenagers are recruited by an underground organization of monster hunters.

Legendary Griff Carver joins the Rampart Middle School Hallway Patrol and with the help of his new friends, Griff solves the case of counterfeit hall passes.

Two thirteen-year-old cousins are trapped in a blizzard on the same treacherous mountain in the Cascades that claimed the lives of their world-famous, mountain-climber, twin fathers exactly two years earlier.