Frances O'Roark Dowell

When accused of murder in her North Carolina mountain town in 1928, Dovey Coe, a stronged-willed twelve-year-old girl, comes to a new understanding of others, including her deaf brother.

A group of foster children build a home of their own. A ghost saved twelve-year-old Maddie's life when she was an infant, her Granny Lane claims, so Maddie must always remember that she is special. But it's hard to feel special when you've spent your life shuffled from one foster home to another. And now that she's at the East Tennessee Children's Home, Maddie feels even less special. She longs for a place to call home. She even has a "book of houses"...

When her brother is sent to fight in Vietnam, twelve-year-old Jamie begins to reconsider the army world that she has grown up in.

Since the death of his mother, Tobin's family life and school life have been in disarray, but after he starts raising chickens with his seventh-grade classmate, Henry, everything starts to fall into place.

Because living with "modern-hippy" parents on a goat farm means fourteen-year-old Janie Gorman cannot have a normal high school life, she tries joining Jam Band, making friends with Monster, and spending time with elderly former civil rights workers.

"Told in a series of reports to his therapist, Hazard is resentful about being forced into counseling after being suspended from his school football team for unsportsmanlike conduct, angry that his father has served four tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, angry that his father has lost a leg when an IED blew up--but as his therapy progresses he begins to process what has happened to him and his family, including his father's psychological trauma...

From the author of Birds in the Air, a touching, big-hearted collection of short stories about women whose lives revolve around family, friends and quilt-making. "This collection presents the cozy comfort of characters we quilters easily recognize and relate to, but goes far deeper," writes Marianne Fons. "I was moved to tears repeatedly. Dowell's five short narratives are about the joys and sorrows inherent in the human condition - but with quilts...

Fourth-grade science whiz Phineas MacGuire is forced to team up with the new boy in class on a science fair project, but the boy's quirky personality causes Phineas to wonder if they have any chance of winning.

"Phineas has a new chore of cooking dinner every night, but his kitchen experiments take a turn for the worse when the school bully takes a huge liking to Phineas's brownies"--

Best friends Marylin and Kate compete for limited school resources when Kate helps her boyfriend seek funding for the Audio Lab, while Marylin covers her interest in the student body president by claiming she only wants his support for new cheerleading uniforms.