Margaret Dilloway

Eleven-year-old Ava Andrews has a Technicolor interior with a gray shell. On the inside, she bubbles with ideas and plans. On the outside, everyone except her best friend, Zelia, thinks she doesn't talk or, worse, is stuck-up. What nobody knows is that Ava has invisible disabilities: anxiety and a heart condition.Ava hopes middle school will be a fresh start, but when Zelia moves across the country and Ava's Nana Linda pushes her to speak up about...

Xander Miyamoto would rather do almost anything than listen to his sixth-grade teacher, Mr. Stedman, drone on about weather disasters happening around the globe. If Xander could do stuff he's good at instead, like draw comics and create computer programs, and if Lovey would stop harassing him for being half-Asian, he might not be counting the minutes until the dismissal bell. When spring break begins at last, Xander plans to spend it playing computer...

After her father goes to jail, Cady Bennett, twelve, is taken from foster care to spend a summer with her estranged Aunt Michelle, trying to save her failing pie shop.

Thirty-six-year-old biology teacher Gal Garner's regimented life will never be the same after her estranged sister's teenage daughter Riley arrives one afternoon unannounced.