A series of poems describes all the baffling changes at home and at school in twelve-year-old Joylin's transition from tomboy basketball player to not-quite-girly girl.

Told in different voices, on Centerlight Island, halfway between the United States and Canada, middle-schoolers Keenan and ZeeBee team up to seek gold rumored to be hidden there a famous gangster.

Seventh-grader Ben, always an outsider, is led into a deep friendship with Halley, who is being treated for cancer, by the special dog he and his adoptive mother take in.

Chase does not remember falling off the roof, in fact he does not remember anything about himself, and when he gets back to middle school he begins to learn who he was through the reactions of the other kids--trouble is, he really is not sure he likes the Chase that is being revealed, but can he take the opportunity amnesia has provided and restart his life?

The Cupcake Club questions its loyalties when Mia makes friends with a mean girl in disguise. There's a new girl in town, and Mia tries to take her under her wing. But Olivia Allen is not so nice, as a matter of fact, she might be even meaner than Sydney Whitman! Mia's been saving for weeks to buy a new pair of shoes, but when Olivia asks to borrow money, Mia gives it to her-only to find out Olivia spends the cash on the exact same shoes Mia has...

When thirteen-year-old David Greenberg's best friend makes the start of middle school even worse than he feared it could be, David becomes friends with Penny, who shares his love of television shows and posts one of their skits on YouTube, making them wildly popular--online, at least.

Merci Suárez begins the sixth grade and knows things will change, but she did not count on her grandfather acting strangely, not fitting in at her private school, and dealing with Edna Santos' jealousy.

Griffin Bing is in big trouble when a Super Bowl ring disappears from his middle school's display case, replaced by Griffin's retainer, and the more he and his friends investigate, the worse his situation becomes.

"Sixth-grader Wes Henderson sets out to save the Oaks, the neighborhood where he's lived his whole life, from being sold to a real estate developer"--

Eleven-year-old Rick Ramsey has generally gone along with everybody, just not making waves, even though he is increasingly uncomfortable with his father's jokes about girls, and his best friend's explicit talk about sex; but now in middle school he discovers the Rainbow Spectrum club, where kids of many genders and identities can express themselves--and maybe among them he can find new friends and discover his own identity, which may just be to opt...