When his best friend Abraham is reported missing, Ali Cross sets out to find him, but he soon learns that being a kid sleuth isn't easy and clues aren't always what they seem. Seventh-grader Zoey Albro focuses on caring for three younger siblings and avoiding rich classmates at school until her fascination with octopuses gets her on the debate team and she begins to speak out.
Four determined homeless children make a life for themselves in Chennai, India. Steeped in Hispanic folklore since childhood, middle schooler Charlie Hernandez learns the stories are true when, shortly after his parents' disappearance, he grows horns and feathers and finds himself at the heart of a battle to save the world. Ever since her near-fatal drowning, Cassidy has been able to pull back the "Veil" that separates the living from the dead and see ghosts, not that she wants to, and she was really looking forward to a ghost-free summer at the beach; however her parents are going to start filming a TV series about the world's most haunted places, starting with Edinburgh with its graveyards, castles, and restless phantoms--and Cass and her personal ghost companion, Jacob, are about to find out that a city of old ghosts can be a very dangerous place indeed.
Jason Reynolds conjures ten tales one per block about what happens after the dismissal bell rings, and brilliantly weaves them into one wickedly funny, piercingly poignant look at the detours we face on the walk home, and in life. Five years. That's how long twelve-year-old Coyote and her dad, River, have lived on the road in an old school bus, criss-crossing the nation. It's also how long ago Coyote lost her mom and two sisters.
Coyote hasn't been home in all that time, but when she learns that the park in her old neighborhood is being demolished--the very same park where she, her mom, and her sisters buried a treasured memory box--she devises an elaborate plan to get her dad to drive 3, miles back to Washington state. On the way, they'll pick up an eclectic group of folks. Lester has a lady love to meet. Salvador and his mom are looking to start over.
Val needs a safe place to be herself. Coyote will learn that going home can sometimes be the hardest journey of all, but that with friends, she just might be able to turn her 'once upon a time' into a 'happily ever after.
