Helen Plum Library

"When scientist-in-the-making Madeline Little starts sixth grade, she soon learns that middle school is nothing like a perfect lab experiment--and that she now has to find the cure for her newly messed-up life"--

Born into a family of over-achievers, fifth-grader Allie Velasco has never finished first in anything, and lately things have been going badly: her science project is ruined by a well-meaning student, her former best friend is hanging out with another girl--but now she is determined to win the Trailblazer contest with a photographic presentation about her great grandfather, the first Congressional Medal of Honor winner from their town

"Nina's visits to her two faraway grandmothers-one in Malaysia and one in England-unfold side-by-side, featuring similarities and differences between the two"--

"Brian Young's powerful debut novel tells of a seemingly ordinary Navajo boy who must save the life of a Water Monster--and comes to realize he's a hero at heart."--

Jenny runs away from home because her mother and sister are too busy for her, but being independent is only fun for a little while

Eight-year-old Ben takes a fortune cookie literally, and believing he has only one day left to live, tries to do everything he has always wanted to before nightfall

Sixteen-year-old Quinn struggles to maintain her image as a brilliant, good girl when her mother's major error at work leads to financial and legal troubles that turn Quinn's and her younger sisters' world upside-down

The stress of her father's job loss causes Fain to feel invisible at home and in her new school, but she escapes with the monsters of her imagination until a family crisis and a human friend cause her to reconsider

When their father is sent away to prison, three London children move to the country where they keep busy preventing accidents on the nearby railway, making many new friends, and generally learning a good deal about themselves

Fifth-grader Cally Louise Fisher stops talking, partly because her father and brother never speak of her mother who died a year earlier, but visions of her mother, friendships with a homeless man and a disabled boy, and a huge dog ensure that she still communicates