Maverick Falconer is just starting middle school and he wishes he were a hero like his father because maybe then he could deal with his mother's drinking and series of abusive boyfriends, not to mention the kids who bully him in middle school (pretty much the same ones who bullied him in elementary school)--but as the year passes he begins to realize that other kids have problems too, and maybe if they can all survive sixth-grade things will get better....

Middle-school drama queen Nikki Maxwell worries about asking a boy to her school's "sweetheart dance."

"As his school's centennial is coming up, Big Nate is stuck showing the dorky new kid around"--

Twelve-year-old María Luisa O'Neill-Morales (who really prefers to be called Malú) reluctantly moves with her Mexican-American mother to Chicago and starts seventh grade with a bang--violating the dress code with her punk rock aesthetic and spurning the middle school's most popular girl in favor of starting a band with a group of like-minded weirdos.

"Ross Maloy just wants to be a normal seventh grader. He doesn't want to lose his hair, or wear a weird hat, or deal with the disappearing friends who don't know what to say to 'the cancer kid.' But with his recent diagnosis of a rare eye cancer, blending in is off the table. Based on the author's real life experience" --

Based on the New York best seller, this tells the incredibly inspiring and heartwarming story of August Pullman, a boy with facial differences who enters fifth grade, attending a mainstream elementary school for the first time.

"Felix Rannells and Benji Porter were never supposed to be field-trip partners. Felix is a rule follower. Benji is a rule bender. They're not friends. And they don't have anything to talk about. Until . . . They find a wallet. A wallet that belongs to tech billionaire Laura Friendly. They're totally going to return it--but not before Benji "borrows" twenty dollars to buy hot dogs. Because twenty dollars is like a penny to a billionaire, right? But...

"Jaci Moriarty's stories are always filled with chocolate, friendship, and the unexpected; here, she gives readers a tale of mystery, magic, and power reclaimed! Esther is a middle child, in her own mind a pale reflection of siblings who are bright, shining stars. Her mother doesn't show the slightest bit of interest, no matter what Esther does. Still, she's sort of content to go back to school, do her best, hang out with her friends, and let others...

Harassed at her middle school, not taken seriously at home, and with a "perfect" older brother, Matthew, to live up to, thirteen-year-old Claire has always felt like her life was cursed--then one morning, when she and her beloved father are talking at breakfast, her father suddenly falls over with a stroke, and suddenly everything changes.

Self-conscious of her stutter, Charlotte says nothing as her best friend is bullied, but as the school year goes on she realizes some things are worth speaking up for.