When the freighter on which they are traveling is torpedoed by a German submarine during World War II, a twelve-year-old white boy, blinded by a blow on the head, and an old black man are stranded on a small desert island in the Caribbean where the boy acquires a new kind of vision, courage, and love from his old companion.

"Cameron Boxer, king of the slackers, has finally found something worth his time. By gaming online he can find both fame and fortune--especially with Elvis (a beaver who seems to love video games as much as Cam) at his side. Or on his shoulder. The only problem? Things keep getting in the way of Cam's gaming. Like school. And the club he accidentally started. And the misguided people in his life who don't think beavers should be playing video games....

Fourteen-year-old Manny, a street kid fighting for survival in a Mexican border town, develops a strange friendship with an emotionally disturbed American soldier who decides to help him get across the border.

The pout-pout fish believes he only knows how to frown, even though many of his friends suggest ways to change his expression, until one day a fish comes along that shows him otherwise.

"When Rafe Khatchadorian is sent to Camp Wannamorra, he teams up with his bunk mates to fend off the more "popular" kids' plans to ruin their summer"--Provided by publisher.

"When autumn arrives on 141st Street, the Vanderbeekers are busy helping Mr. Beiderman get ready for the New York City Marathon and making sure the mysterious person sleeping in the community garden gets enough to eat. But when they discover the true identity of the person making a home in the community garden's shed, their world turns upside down as they learn what it means to care for someone in an impossible situation."--Page [4] of cover.

With insight and a light touch, best-selling, Newbery Honor-winning author Gary D. Schmidt tells two poignant, linked stories: that of a grieving girl and a boy trying to escape his violent past. Following the death of her closest friend in summer 1968, Meryl Lee Kowalski goes off to St. Elene's Preparatory Academy for Girls, where she struggles to navigate the venerable boarding school's traditions and a social structure heavily weighted toward students...

Eight-year-old Tess is convinced that if she believes and stays aware of the magic around her, she will meet Santa Claus on Christmas Eve of 1958, when she will thank him for his gifts and ask him to use his magic to cure her best friend's father of cancer.

After machines take control of Earth, following the extinction of humans, twelve-year-old robot XR 935A confronts its prejudices about humans and begins to reconsider its own existence within robot society after discovering and befriending a twelve-year-old human girl.--

Left alone to guard the family's wilderness home in eighteenth-century Maine, a boy is hard-pressed to survive until local Indians teach him their skills.