“Vivid and moving. I loved it.” —Rebecca Stead, Newbery-winning author of When You Reach Me Julia and Eliza are best friends, so when Julia’s mom is sent to serve in Iraq, it makes perfect sense for her to spend the summer with Eliza and her parents. Any other time, Julia would be thrilled to be there. But on top of worrying about her mom, Julia develops her first real crush. The gap between Julia and Eliza keeps widening—until Eliza does something drastic to win back her best friend. In her follow-up to the award-winning Anything But Typical , Nora Baskin Raleigh has written a powerful, touching story about friendship, first love, and how the people who are farthest away from us are sometimes the ones we need the most.

Someone puts his hand on my shoulder, and when I turn around my knees almost crumble. It's him. Victoria Martin's in a bad way. Falling for Jim, the school hottie, was just the start of it; now she finds herself caught up in major plots to win him over, while at the same time getting rid of his annoyingly gorgeous girlfriend, Gloria. So when she hears that Jim's going to be spending the whole summer on Fire Island, Victoria knows that this is her chance to be noticed and signs herself up for a summer as a mother's helper there. It's got to work! But Victoria's about to learn that first love can easily collapse into sheer disaster...

I can't believe my mother was ever my age. I think she was born a mother.... Now that she's a teenager, Victoria Martin expects freedom, good times, and maybe even some understanding from her mother. But no such luck! She's still getting the same old lectures, the same old groundings, and the same old punishments. It's obvious her mother was never thirteen years old.Then one day, as she's on her way home to get the telling-off of her life, something very strange happens to Victoria. When she finally arrives in New York, the station looks completely different, as if she's slipped back through time. And then she meets Cici -- cool, outgoing Cici, the best friend a girl like Victoria could want. But Victoria can't help feeling like she's met her somewhere before....

In a crowd of beautiful ballet dancers, how can one girl stand out? As a dancer with the ultra-prestigious Manhattan Ballet company, nineteen-year-old Hannah Ward juggles intense rehearsals, dazzling performances, and complicated backstage relationships. But when she meets a spontaneous and irresistibly cute musician named Jacob, her universe begins to change. Until now, Hannah has happily followed the company's unofficial mantra, "Don't think, just dance." But as Jacob opens her eyes to the world beyond the theater, Hannah must decide whether to compete against the other "bunheads" for a star soloist spot or to strike out on her own.

"This is the bread I baked for Ned baked for Ned in the morning." And so begins a delightful story narrated by Glenda, as she prepares a nice surprise for Ned -- "what a fellow!" First she bakes the bread, and then she presents the cheese, the salad, the soup, the olives, tulips in a jug, and the two soup bowls and spoons! Whew! But little does Glenda know that when Ned comes home for dinner, he'll have a special surprise of his own to share!