April is looking for an escape from the sixth-grade lunch hour, which has become a social-scene nightmare, so she signs up to be a "buddy bench monitor" for the fourth graders' recess. Joey Byrd is a boy on the fringes, who wanders the playground alone, dragging his foot through the dirt. But over time, April realizes that Joey isn't just making random circles. When you look at his designs from above, a story emerges... Joey's "bird's eye" drawings...

A lightning strike made Lucy, twelve, a math genius but, after years of homeschooling, her grandmother enrolls her in middle school and she learns that life is more than numbers.

Seventh-grader Ben, always an outsider, is led into a deep friendship with Halley, who is being treated for cancer, by the special dog he and his adoptive mother take in.

"Reha feels torn between two worlds: school, where she's the only Indian American student, and home, with her family's traditions and holidays. But Reha's parents don't understand why she's conflicted-they only notice when Reha doesn't meet their strict expectations. Reha feels disconnected from her mother, or Amma, although their names are linked-Reha means "star" and Punam means "moon"-but they are a universe apart. Then Reha finds out that her...

After shunning Jaime, the school nerd, on her first day at a new middle school, Penelope Torres tries to blend in with her new friends in the art club, until the art club goes to war with the science club, of which Jaime is a member.

Nikki's diary is up to the month of April, and springtime is sure to bring more wacky adventures with Nikki and her friends Chloe, Zoey, and Brandon!

When sixth-grader Mac discovers several words of his classroom copy of Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic are blacked out he is outraged, so he, his friends, and his eccentric family set out to do something about the censorship imposed by one teacher and the school board.

Seventh-grader Hercules Beal has to figure out how to fulfill his teacher's assignment of performing the Twelve Labors of Hercules in real life, and discovers important things about friendship, community, and himself along the way.

Twelve-year-old Rahul Kapoor, an Indian-American boy growing up in small-town Indiana, struggles to come to terms with his identity, including that he may be gay.

Follows Sam, Duke, and Chollie in their attempts to win the affection of Miranda Mullaly, who barely realizes they exist.