Sally Warner

Eight-year-old EllRay Jakes of Oak Glen Primary School is looking for a new best friend, and he decides that the best way to find one is to come up with a bunch of amazing things to do at recess--and see who shares in the fun.

Third-grader EllRay dreads the upcoming Winter Wonderland school assembly in which he must emcee and sing "Jingle Bell Rock."

All the boys in EllRay's third-grade class have something they can brag about. Corey's on the swim team, Kevin is super tall, Jared's dad has an ATV. But EllRay's dad is a geologist - not much to brag about. After all, rocks are boring. Then EllRay sees the crystals in his dad's office, and they are really cool looking. If EllRay just "borrows" them to show his classmates, he knows they'd be impressed. And his dad will never have to know. It's a perfect...

EllRay Jakes may be the smallest kid in his class at Oak Glen Primary School, but he's also his sister Alfie's big brother. So when it looks like Alfie is being bossed around by a dragon-like girl at her school, EllRay feels responsible. As her older (and wiser!) brother, shouldn't he show her that she should stand up for herself? But little sisters and four year old dragons are a bit more complicated than he thought.

Dilly's mom, Elspeth Dillon Howell, died when Dilly was just six. She left her daughter an Adirondack farmhouse and a letter for when Dilly was "older." Now that Dilly's old enough, the letter's missing. As Dilly searches for it in the house's many hiding places, she makes a few discoveries about the mom she never really knew. Surprisingly, Elspeth's long-ago life looks a lot like Dilly's today.

Third-grader Emma becomes a reluctant heroine when she defends a friend from the class bully.

Eight-year-old Emma is just beginning to like her new school when her friend Cynthia starts telling other kids that Emma is, well, a little strange.

When the third-graders compete in the first annual winter games, Emma feels that she must win in order to prove to her father, who is divorced from her mother and lives in England with his new wife, that she is good at something.

Twelve-year-old Janey tries to adjust in the aftermath of an automobile accident that kills her parents, severely injures her face, and forces her and her younger sister to move from Arizona to California to live with their grandfather and great-aunt.

Eight-year-old Emma is upset to learn that her mother is dating, but not passing along a message about a cancelled date makes Emma feels worse.