Erin Entrada Kelly

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...

"Twelve-year-old Lalani Sarita takes on the impossible task of traveling to the legendary Mount Isa, towering on an island to the north. Generations of men and boys have died on the same quest--how can a timid young girl in a tiny boat survive the epic tests of the archipelago?"--

"Marisol, who has a big imagination and likes to name inanimate objects, has a tree in her backyard named Peppina...but she's way too scared to climb it. Will Marisol find the courage to climb Peppina? Maybe"--

When Ridge, a time-traveling teenager from the future, gets trapped in 1999, he befriends Michael, a lonely twelve-year-old boy, changing the course of their lives forever.

The twelve kids in the seventh grade at Fawn Creek K-12 have been together all their lives so when graceful Orchid Mason arrives, with exotic clothes and glorious hair, the other seventh graders do not know what to think.

"One of Marisol's least-favorite things is gym class--especially when Coach Decker announces that they will be playing kickball--so Marisol and her best friend Jada ask the best (and stinkiest) athlete they know--Marisol's big brother Oz--for help"--Provided by publisher.

Virgil feels out of place in his crazy-about-sports family. Valencia is deaf, smart, and loves everything about nature. Kaori is a self-proclaimed psychic, whose little sister, Gen, is always following her around. And Chet wishes the weird kids would just stop being so different so that he can concentrate on basketball. They aren't friends. But when Chet pulls a prank that traps Virgil and his pet guinea pig at the bottom of a well, Kaori, Gen, and...

For Angela, it came on the basketball court--while playing on the boys' team. For Penny, it came on a school field trip to the lake (making for some cringeworthy moments of humor). And to Layla's disappointment, it came at the start of her first fasting Ramadan, meaning that she won't be able to fast after all. Whether it spurs silence or celebration, whether the subjects are well prepared or totally in the dark, the young people in these sixteen...