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...

Publisher Annotation: Rydr is on a train heading east, leaving California, where her gramma can?t take care of her anymore, and traveling to Chicago, to live with an unknown relative. She brings with her a backpack, memories both happy and sad, and a box, containing something very important. As Rydr meets her fellow passengers and learns their stories, her own story begins to emerge. It?s one of sadness and heartache, and one Rydr would sometimes...

"After the death of her mother, Lydia moves in with her aunts and learns to find a new family of inspiring women and loving dogs"--

George loves spending Saturdays with his grandmother, Stella. One day, Stella is gone and George is ready to cancel Saturdays--until a new addition to the family arrives and George finds a way to honor the memories of his beloved grandmother.

School and life have become much more difficult since Ben Y's older brother died, especially since the indefinable Ace seems determined to seek her out without clarifying what kind of relationship she wants; mostly Ben Y tries to cope with her situation by going to the chatroom and obsessively typing messages to her brother who is no longer there--but when she starts getting messages from the ghost in the machine (apparently) she finds that her deepest...