Deschutes Public Library

Andy and Tamika are watching their neighbor's house while they are away, but when strange and troubling things start happening inside the house, the police do not believe the children.

Twelve-year-old New York City twins Meg and Edward have nothing in common, so they are just as shocked as everyone else when Meg's hopes for popularity and Edward's mischievous schemes coincidentally collide in a hilarious showdown.

While vacationing with their widowed father in the Berkshire Mountains, four lovable sisters, ages four through twelve, share adventures with a local boy, much to the dismay of his snobbish mother.

After her brother dies and her parents get a divorce, twelve-year-old Katahdin sets out to hike the whole Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine on her own.

An eleven-year-old Penacook Indian boy living on a reservation faces his father's alcoholism, a controversy surrounding plans for a casino on a tribal island, and insensitivity toward Native Americans in his school and nearby town.

An all-American girl with Chinese ancestors and a new immigrant from China find little in common when they meet in their fourth grade classroom, but they are both missing their best friends and soon discover other connections.

As letters flow back and forth--between the prairies of Illinois and the mountains of Afghanistan, across cultural and religious divides--sixth-grader Abby, ten-year-old Amira, and eleven-year-old Sadeed begin to speak and listen to each other.

Over Christmas vacation, Annabel goes from her home in Manhattan to visit her father, his new wife, and her half- and step-siblings in Sydney, Australia.

Dylan and his sisters have some ideas about how to make Snowdonia Oasis Auto Marvel into a more profitable business, but it is not until some strange men arrive in their small town of Manod, Wales with valuable paintings, and their father disappears, that they consider turning to crime.

Thirteen-year-old fraternal twins Dallas and Florida have grown up in a terrible orphanage but their lives change forever when an eccentric but sweet older couple invites them each on an adventure, beginning in an almost magical place called Ruby Holler.

Twelve-year-old Annie ponders the many rhythms of life the year that her mother becomes pregnant, her grandfather begins faltering, and her best friend (and running partner) becomes distant.

Ten-year-old Abbie, bullied at school for being small, wants to get a big black dog, but two months of living with a little Yorkshire terrier changes his mind about a number of things.

Twelve-year-old Kelley decides to cut off contact with her friends and classmates after suffering third-degree burns to her face and body in a car accident near her home on Maryland's Kent Island.

After the death of his abusive father, eleven-year-old Ricky tries to help his younger brother deal with his residual fears and discovers that running helps him deal with his own anger and the taunts of a bullying classmate.

Ten-year-old India Opal Buloni describes her first summer in the town of Naomi, Florida, and all the good things that happen to her because of her big ugly dog Winn-Dixie.

Pa Lia and her classmates share memories of Stinky Stern, the second-grade bully.

Nine-year-old Julie loves animals. So much it seems that she's assembling a zoo in her room. But, what she really wants is a dog.

After her mother dies, eleven-year-old Cecelia befriends a new boy at school, but soon realizes that the scruffy youth's home life is the reason for his introspective personality, which is so much like her own.

To the constant disappointment of his mother and his teachers, Joey has trouble paying attention or controlling his mood swings when his prescription meds wear off and he starts getting worked up and acting wired.

When Therese is chosen to do the coveted oral report on Ethan Allen, she learns a great deal about the Vermont hero and also discovers what pleasure she gets from writing and presenting the report.

A troublesome twelve-year-old orphan, staying with an elderly artist who needs her, remembers the only other time she was happy in a foster home, with a family that truly seemed to care about her.

When fourteen-year-old rivals Boot Quinn and Mick Sullivan fight once too often, the new principal devises the punishment of having to play games together at his office, where they learn which battles are worth fighting.

Living in San Antonio, Texas, eleven-year-old Alma tries to cope with the drive-by shooting death of her favorite Latina singer, as well as deal with the struggles of her various family members, and finds herself doing something she knows is wrong.

Assisted by his neighbor, Birdie, blind thirteen-year-old Ed "Bogie" Bogard will win one million dollars if he can sink a ten-foot putt in Hawaii's fifth annual Angus Killick Memorial Tournament.

While ten-year-old Anya faces the difficulties of losing her hair to alopecia, her classmate Keely learns how to stand up for what she knows is right.

When eleven-year-old Sasha tries to ignore the fact that her brother has Tourette's Syndrome, it takes a classmate to help her understand and accept the situation.

Ten-year-old Dreenie feels both intrigued and frightened when she thinks about the girl nicknamed Bluish, whose leukemia is making her pale and causing her to use a wheelchair.

In Wisconsin, fourth-grader Ida B spends happy hours being home-schooled and playing in her family's apple orchard, until her mother begins treatment for breast cancer and her parents must sell part of the orchard and send her to public school.

When twelve-year-old Ben visits his uncle in Oregon, he feels caught in the strained relationship between his mother and her brother while he also begins to accept himself as an artist.

On a summer visit to her grandmother's cottage by the ocean, twelve-year-old Martha gains perspective on the death of a classmate, on her relationship with her grandmother, on her feelings for an older boy, and on her plans to be a writer.

Roy, who is new to his small Florida community, becomes involved in another boy's attempt to save a colony of burrowing owls from a proposed construction site.

Four youngsters, ages nine to fifteen, narrate one side of the story of their newly blended family's adjustment, interwoven with grief and loss.

While vacationing in the country, eleven-year-old Toby, a cancer patient, learns some important lessons about living and dying from an elderly poet and her cow.

During his summer in Maine, twelve-year-old Homer, together with his new friend Roger, is determined to find the truth about himself, his long-dead father, and a mysterious costumed man.

A sixth grader's discovery of a bedraggled classroom pet parrot sets him on an adventure with real ethical and legal implications.

Chronicles the close friendship between two Japanese-American sisters growing up in rural Georgia during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the despair when one sister becomes terminally ill.

Eleven-year-old Charlotte is not a dog person but does not like that the rest of her family neglects their Saint Bernard puppy, and so with a lot of determination and a little sneakiness, she works on finding a good home for the gentle giant.

With a mother who buys Christmas cards in August and a younger brother who describes the Trinity as a toasted marshmallow on a graham cracker, life for eleven-year-old Charles Harrisong is anything but normal in Normal, Illinois.

Greg records his sixth grade experiences in a middle school where he and his best friend, Rowley, undersized weaklings amid boys who need to shave twice daily, hope just to survive, but when Rowley grows more popular, Greg must take drastic measures to save their friendship.

Upon leaving an oppressive summer camp, twelve-year-old Margaret Rose Kane spearheads a campaign to preserve three unique towers her grand uncles have been building in their back yard for over forty years.

Eighth-grade football hero Wallace Wallace is sentenced to detention attending rehearsals of the school play where, in spite of himself, he becomes wrapped up in the production and begins to suggest changes that improve not only the play but his life as well.

When a new classmate stops speaking because of the sudden death of his mother, fifth grader Sam tries to befriend him and risks destroying his relationship with his best friend Alex.

Each of the girls in a middle-school clique reveals the strong, manipulative hold one of the group exerts on the others, and the hurt and self-doubt that it causes them.

Frustrated at her seeming lack of talent for anything, a young Taiwanese American girl sets out to apply the lessons of the Chinese Year of the Dog, those of making best friends and finding oneself, to her own life.

Frustrated at life with an autistic brother, twelve-year-old Catherine longs for a normal existence but her world is further complicated by a friendship with an young paraplegic.

When Oy and her Thai American family move to a new neighborhood, her third-grade classmates tease and exclude her because she is different.

Belle Teal Harper is from a poor family in the country, and beginning fifth-grade is a challenge as her grandmother's memory is slipping away, her brother and father are fighting again, and she becomes involved with the two new children in her class.

Spurred on by his youngest sister, Rose, twelve-year-old Indigo sticks up for himself and an American boy who has replaced him as the primary target of the school bullies.

When Todd is both happy and anxious about trying to fit in with the regular fifth grade class but feels confused about how to relate to his former friends in the Special Needs class, a school assignment on the exploited pygmy, Ota Benga, helps give him confidence and clarity.

Third-grader Wilson struggles with his times-tables in order to beat the class deadline.

Afraid of getting maimed for making fun of Brick, the husky new kid in his fifth-grade class, Nick decides that even his baseball collection will not protect him so he signs up for karate class, despite his little brother's reassurances that Brick is not a bully.

After she, her older brother, and their father move from Chicago to Maryland, Alice has trouble fitting into her new third grade class, but with the help of some new friends and her own unique outlook, she survives.

Eleven-year-old Ned, who prefers the name Treb, uses his diary to record his wild thoughts about romance, school, and the rest of his eventful life.

Fourteen-year-old Jake recalls how he has spent the last four years of his life watching his grandfather descend slowly but surely into the horrors of Alzheimer's disease.

When Angel's self-absorbed mother leaves her and her younger brother with their poor great-grandmother, the eleven-year-old girl worries not only about her mother and brother, her imprisoned father, the frail old woman, but also about a mysterious man who begins sharing with her the wonder of the stars.

Fearing that her legal guardian plans to abandon her to return to France, ten-year-old aspiring scientist Lucky Trimble determines to run away while also continuing to seek the Higher Power that will bring stability to her life.

Determined not to be weird all his life like his neighbor, Charley Maplewood decides to throw himself a tenth birthday party, complete with a "house of horrors" theme, but first he will have to make some friends to invite.

In his eighth foster home since the death of his great-grandmother, eleven-year-old Ben becomes very attached to a baby living with the same family and worries when the baby's biological mother takes him away.

After their parents divorce, eleven-year-old Elsie and her younger brother Tommy, who is mentally "different," must deal with a terrible secret that causes them and their mother to move from place to place and stay in hiding.

When twelve-year-old George's sister and brother-in-law move out of their trailer park while George is at school, leaving him behind, he moves in with a rich schoolmate and his family.

Working for his stepfather on a charter fishing boat in Hawaii teaches thirteen-year-old Mikey about fishing, and about taking risks, making sacrifices, and facing some of life's difficult choices.

Nine-year-old. Calvin catches the attention of the school bully on the day before he starts fourth grade, while at home, the unfriendly, fifteen-year-old daughter of his mother's best friend has taken over his room.

Twelve-year-old Alexandra finds adventure as she survives watching her first scary movie, makes soap for her best friend, and travels alone by train to visit her Crazy Aunt Carol in New York City.

When a family tragedy occurs, ten-year-old Alyssa "Blister" Reed changes schools, moves to an apartment with her depressed mother while her father gets his own place, and tries to believe her grandmother, who tells her she is "elastic" and can handle it all.

Even though his classmates from first grade on have considered him strange and a loser, Daniel Zinkoff's optimism and exuberance and the support of his loving family do not allow him to feel that way about himself.

Mourning the loss of his mother, nine-year-old David forms an unlikely friendship with independent, quirky thirteen-year-old Primrose, as the two help each other deal with what is missing in their lives.

Franklin Delano Donuthead, a fifth-grader obsessed with hygiene and safety, finds an unlikely friend and protector in Sarah Kervick, the tough new student who lives in a dirty trailer, bonds with his mother, and is as "irregular" as he is.

After the death of their father, Fiona, who wants to be a ballerina and to be accepted by her peers, and her younger sister, Wallace, who is an independent free-spirit, rebuild a life for themselves and their artist mother in the now-neglected mansion that was once their beautiful home.

Lauren would love to be part of the popular crowd at school, and when an attractive new girl seems to befriend her and offers a chance at popularity, Lauren does not recognize how she is being manipulated.

When Skylar goes to summer school and tentatively begins to make some friends, she finally starts to get over the loss of her older sister and its terrible effects on the whole family.

Two thirteen-year-old boys share neighborhood adventures, complaints about their older sisters, family secrets, and even guilt that bind them together in a special friendship.

After meeting on the first day in Mrs. Chemsky's fifth-grade class, Margalo and Mikey help each other in and out of trouble, as they try to maintain a friendship while each asserts her independence.

When her older brother is killed in an accident, ten-year-old Tessa and her parents find it difficult to overcome their grief and return to living normally.

When his best friend is seriously injured in a bike accident, Guy recounts their first meeting and how the friendship grew despite the weird antics of Guy's eccentric mother.

Ten-year-old Tracy, who lives in a children's home because her mother was forced to give her up, dreams of getting a good foster family where she can be happy until her mother comes back for her.

While serving as co-editors of their school newspaper, middle-schoolers Adam and Jennifer uncover fraud and corruption in their school and in the city's government.

Placed in a group foster home, eleven-year-old Cal Lavender learns how to cope with life from the four other girls who live there and from their storytelling guardian, the Knitting Lady.

Twelve-year-old Toswiah finds her life changed when her family enters the witness protection program.

In a series of poems, eleven-year-old Lonnie writes about his life, after the death of his parents, separated from his younger sister, living in a foster home, and finding his poetic voice at school.

In a series of journal entries, eleven-year-old child prodigy Millicent Min records her struggles to learn to play volleyball, tutor her enemy, deal with her grandmother's departure, and make friends over the course of a tumultuous summer.

After flunking sixth-grade English, basketball prodigy Stanford Wong must struggle to pass his summer-school class, keep his failure a secret from his friends, and satisy his academically demanding father.

Robin, a young ballet dancer who is half Chinese and half white, works in a fish store for Mr. Tsow, a brusque Chinese who accuses her of being a half-person and who harbors a bitter secret.