For one thing, he has to pass math so his parents will let him play baseball in the spring. And there's his locker, right between Godzilla Girl and Julia Patterson, who keeps slipping him love notes...and Freemont, who seems to have changed into someone Mic hardly recognizes as his best friend. The weirdest thing on Bixby Court, though, has got to be Mic's deaf-blind older sister, Stephanie, clomping around the house, touching everybody and everything. Mic hardly remembers when they used to have long fingerspelled conversations in the middle of the night, when they would play flashlight tag until Stephanie's gulp-laughs gave them away.Then Vern Chortle, aka "Nerd Boy," moves to Bixby Court. With his 382-pair sock collection, laminated maps, and beeping watch, he's the last person Mic wants as his shadow.Almost against his will, however, Mic finds himself spending more and more time at Vern's house. And as Mic lets himself admit to liking Vern, he also gradually realizes that Stephanie understands him in a way no one else can...and, surprisingly, might even be able to help put him back on the ball field again -- just like normal.

    When she is given an audition at the prestigious Evanova School, she makes three firm friends but she is convinced she won't be offered a place. Has Sadie got what it takes? Will she get the chance to see her new friends again?

    She questions their ability to portray strong, independent women, and asks why the female authors often resort to the conventions of society, marrying the characters off into a life of domesticity.

    She just likes to dance too much! Until Toni's aunt convinces her to send Toni to the same convent that the sisters both attended as girls.Toni continues her defiant ways at the convent, sneaking away to dance and celebrate the prairie sunrise. That's how she winds up in the forbidden barn, and that's where she finds the strange little kid Jess, who's cold, hungry and dirty -- and quite obviously beaten up. Toni risks her own safety to bring this runaway home. Will they be able to stick together when Jess's abusive uncle turns up to try and claim her back?