Seventh-grader Hercules Beal has to figure out how to fulfill his teacher's assignment of performing the Twelve Labors of Hercules in real life, and discovers important things about friendship, community, and himself along the way. "Herc Beal knows who he's named after - a mythical hero - but he's no superhero. He's the smallest kid in his class. So when his homeroom teacher at his new middle school gives him the assignment of duplicating the mythical...

Thirteen-year-old Jeff's life spirals downward into homelessness after his alcoholic mother loses her job.--

Because his family has moved again Josh Baxter is starting at a new school for the third time in two years, and this time he has really started off on the wrong foot--but when his mother takes away the video games that have become his refuge because of his poor grades, Josh realizes he has to come up with a new strategy for success.

When her favorite rock band Lulu and the Handbags announces a contest, Georgia is determined the all-girl rock band she's in will win--even if she has to ask her brother Rafe for help.

"Hazel doesn't like to make waves. Middle school is hard enough without causing more trouble, right? She's happy just eating lunch in the library with her BFF, writing secret haikus, and taking care of an adorable rescue tortoise. But then Hazel discovers a list that rates the girls at her middle school based on their looks -- started by her best friend's older brother. She knows she has to do something, and she can't do it alone. The wave she'll...

When scholarship student Nikki Maxwell, whose father is the school exterminator, decides to enter the talent show at her expensive private school, her nemesis MacKenzie threatens to reveal Nikki's status to the rest of the school.

When his father moves them halfway across Colorado, eleven-year-old Hugo O'Donnell is surprised that his remarkable talent for garbology makes him popular for the first time in his life.