Twelve-year-old Arcturus Betelgeuse Chambers' quest to find life on other planets seems at an end when his parents decide to move to Las Vegas, but while they look for a house he stays with his neighbor, an astronaut who soon becomes a friend.

    Especially now, when her beloved younger brother Beep is in his second leukemia relapse, and a bone marrow transplant from Kat may be his only chance.But Kat's worried that she and her bone marrow may not be up to the task: She can't even complete homework, and she's facing other rejection--lost friendships, a lost spot on the soccer team, and lots of heartache from her crush on her former best friend, Evan. Kat doesn't know if her bone marrow will save Beep, or whether she can save herself, let alone keep her promise to Beep that she'll enjoy life and always eat dessert first.Dessert First is a funny, moving story about coping, appreciating sweetness, and learning to forgive.

    For Missy, blueberry picking quickly becomes about more than just money—it's the perfect distraction from the fact that her two best friends have gone off to summer camp without her and her dad is getting remarried. Why can't everything go back to the way it used to be? Back to normal? Soon, though, Missy discovers that the summer is full of secrets: the secrets to making her family feel whole again; the secrets to keeping her two best friends from changing and leaving her behind; the secrets of a local farm's blood feud; and most importantly, the secrets of blueberries.Author Sara Nickerson infuses warmth and humor into this tender coming-of-age story about finding something special within yourself and a place to call your own, in even the most tumultuous of times.

    As team captain, she'd like nothing more than to help her girls take home the trophy and the $10,000 prize money. And as one of the few brown faces on the field, it'd be a personal triumph to show-up her rich, white opponents.But Shenice's focus gets shaken when her Uncle Jack reveals that a family crime may have been a set-up all along. Shenice will stop at nothing to uncover the past. The closer she gets to the truth, though, the further she gets from her goals for the future.From the New York Times bestselling author of Clean Getaway, Nic Stone seamlessly pairs the history of the Negro Leagues with the story of a contemporary, Black tween determined to blaze a trail of her own.

    So when she goes hiking in the Smokies with her friends for a night of partying, the falling dark and creaking trees are second nature to her. But people are not tame either. And when Ashley catches her boyfriend with another girl, drunken rage sends her running into the night, stopped only by a nasty fall into a ravine. Morning brings the realization that she's alone - and far off trail. Lost in undisturbed forest and with nothing but the clothes on her back, Ashley must figure out how to survive despite the red streak of infection creeping up her leg.

    If you keep driving and driving, gas will run out, right?""That's why we gotta go to the gas station.""Yep. But have you ever seen the sky run out? No matter how far we go?""No, when we look up, there it is.""Well that's the kind of love Daddy and Mama got for us, Peaches--love like sky.""It never ends?""Never."G-baby and her younger sister, Peaches, are still getting used to their "blended-up" family. They live with Mama and Frank out in the suburbs, and they haven't seen their real daddy much since he married Millicent. G-baby misses her best friend back in Atlanta, and is crushed that her glamorous new stepsister, Tangie, wants nothing to do with her.G-baby is so preoccupied with earning Tangie's approval that she isn't there for her own little sister when she needs her most. Peaches gets sick-really sick. Suddenly, Mama and Daddy are arguing like they did before the divorce, and even the doctors at the hospital don't know how to help Peaches get better.It's up to G-baby to put things right. She knows Peaches can be strong again if she can only see that their family's love for her really is like sky.

    Why are boys so hard to figure out? But then something amazing happens--she wakes up with a new app on her phone: iSpeak Boy! Suddenly Emmy has the information every girl wants to know--the super-secret knowledge of how boys think . . . and who they like!Now Emmy is using her magical app to make matches left and right. But can she use it to help Harper, the only person who doesn't seem to buy into Emmy's "gift"? And when her secret gets out and the app ends up in the wrong hands, can Emmy figure out how to undo the damage she's caused?

    After a major friendship breakup in San Diego, moving overseas to Scotland gives her the perfect chance to reinvent herself. On top of that, she’s going to live in a real-life castle! But as romantic as life in a castle sounds, the reality is a little less comfortable: it’s run-down, freezing, and crawling with critters. Plus, starting off on the wrong foot with the gardener’s granddaughter doesn’t help her nerves about making new friends. So she comes up with the perfect solution: she’ll be homeschooled. Her parents agree, on one condition: she has to participate in a social activity. Inspired by a journal that she finds hidden in her bedroom, Callie decides to join a birding club. Sure, it sounds unusual, but at least it’s not sports or performing. But when she clashes with the club leader, she risks losing a set of friends all over again. Will she ever be able to find her flock and make this strange new place feel like home?

    Polonius-on-the-Fjord is the annual Tasting of the Sacred Bear Liver. Each citizen over twelve must eat one bite of liver to prevent the recurrence of the Great Hibernation, when the town founder's fell asleep for months.This year is Jean Huddy's first time to taste the liver. It doesn't go well. A few hours later, all the adults fall asleep. And no one can wake them.The kids are left to run things, and they're having a blast. That is, until the town bullies take over the mayor's office and the police force.Jean suspects that this "hibernation" was actually engineered by someone in town. She starts to investigate, and inspires other kids to join her in a secret plan to save St. Polonius.

    Two feet, one hand. Two hands, one foot. That was all Cora needed to know to climb the trees of Brooklyn.But now Cora is a middle schooler, a big sister, and homeless. Her mother is trying to hold the family together after her father's death, and Cora must look after her sister, Adare, who's just different, their mother insists. Quick to smile, Adare hates wearing shoes, rarely speaks, and appears untroubled by the question Cora can't help but ask: How will she find a place to call home?After their room at the shelter is ransacked, Cora's mother looks to an old friend for help, and Cora finally finds what she has been looking for: Ailanthus altissima, the "tree of heaven," which can grow in even the worst conditions. It sets her on a path to discover a deeper truth about where she really belongs.

    Set in Harlem in the early days of hip-hop, My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich is a moving and hilarious story of girl finding a place and a voice in a world that's changing at warp speed.In the summer of 1984, 12-year-old Ebony-Grace Norfleet makes the trip from Huntsville, Alabama, to Harlem, where she'll spend a few weeks with her father while her mother deals with some trouble that's arisen for Ebony-Grace's beloved grandfather, Jeremiah. Jeremiah Norfleet is a bit of a celebrity in Huntsville, where he was one of the first black engineers to integrate NASA two decades earlier. And ever since his granddaughter came to live with him when she was little, he's nurtured her love of all things outer space and science fiction--especially Star Wars and Star Trek, both of which she's watched dozens of time on Grandaddady's Betamax machine. So even as Ebony-Grace struggled to make friends among her peers, she could always rely on her grandfather and the imaginary worlds they created together. In Harlem, however, she faces a whole new challenge. Harlem in 1984 is an exciting and terrifying place for a sheltered girl from Hunstville, and her first instinct is to retreat into her imagination. But soon 126th Street begins to reveal that it has more in common with her beloved sci-fi adventures than she ever thought possible, and by summer's end, Ebony-Grace discovers that gritty and graffitied Harlem has a place for a girl whose eyes are always on the stars.Zoboi's middle-grade debut sets an utterly captivating character in a meticulously researched 1980s Harlem for a novel that will delight and inspire.

    Five short stories are told in the first person, all crisp and compactly tailored in setting forth their common theme of self-awareness.--Booklist.

    But there's nothing exotic about it to Clara. She loves eating ripe mangos off the ground, running outside in the rain with her Papa during rainy season, and going to her secret hideout with Gaynah--even though lately she's not acting like a best friend.The only thing out of the ordinary for Clara is that something happened to her memory that made her forget everything that happened last summer after a hurricane hit. Sometimes things come back to her in drips like a tap that hasn't been turned off properly. Other times her Mama fills in the blanks...only she knows those aren't her memories and it is hard feeling like she is not like everybody else.But this summer is going to be different for Clara. Everyone is buzzing with excitement over a new girl in the village who is not like other visitors. She is about to make big waves on the island--and give Clara a summer she won't forget.

    My best friend had turned pretty.2. She didn't know it yet.3. It wouldn't be long before she did.4. That knowledge would change everything between us.5. And there wasn't a thing I could do about it.It's the first day of seventh grade. Is Jessica Darling doomed for dorkdom?New York Times bestselling author Megan McCafferty's hilarious series opener will have you laughing, cringing, and cheering for Jessica Darling as she learns that being herself beats being popular, pretty & perfect any day.

    But inside she discovers something truly amazing -- a letter from WWII, from a young girl to her sister, who has been evacuated from London. The letter includes a "spell" for bringing people closer together, a list of clues leading all through the city. Each stop along the way adds up to magic.Phoebe is stunned by the discovery. Not only is it an amazing piece of history, the letter is exactly what she needs -- she is also separated from her sister, though not by distance. Alice will be leaving for university soon, and in the meantime, she seems to want nothing to do with Phoebe. They used to be so close! But now that Phoebe has this magical list -- maybe she can try the spell herself, and make everything go back to the way it was!