There are traditional youth organizations with badges, bake sales, and award ceremonies. But what about those who don't fit neatly into a group structure?  is there a place for them?

Meet four girls who appear to have little in common. Lane DiSanti, artist and instigator, lives with her wealthy grandmother while her parents work out an impending divorce. Ofelia Castillo, aspiring journalist  struggles under the watchful eye of over-protective Cuban American parents.  Cat Garcia feels pressure from her close-knit family to participate in a local contest. She'd rather spend her time birdwatching. Gourmet chef Aster Douglas lives with her African American grandfather, a researcher and retired college professor.  Her widowed mother is overseas.

Thirteen-year-old Patricia "Sweet Pea" DiMarco is experiencing some significant changes. Her parents have agreed to an amicable divorce and will live on the same street in similar houses to minimize their daughter's discomfort with this new family dynamic.
She is simultaneously negotiating a falling-out with her former best friend and the repercussions from thoughtlessness toward her new best friend. This girl is headed for a world of hurt.
Then there's her neighbor, the eccentric advice columnist Miss Flora Mae who leaves town and asks Sweet Pea to forward advice requests and then deliver the answers to the newspaper editor. Sweet Pea succumbs to temptation and reads letters addressed to Miss Flora Mae. She decides to dispense her own advice and sets up an elaborate scheme to impersonate Miss Flora Mae in print. Sometimes the plan works. Sometimes it doesn't. How she extricates herself from a situation of her own making, salvages damages friendships, and rebuilds trust makes for a humorous, heartwarming tale.

Stacey Lee addresses racism, worker's rights, immigration, and women's suffrage from a unique perspective: a Chinese girl living in Atlanta Georgia in the late 1800s.
​Seventeen-year-old Jo Kuan loses her job as a milliner and must return to the demeaning life of a lady's maid for the cruel daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Atlanta. She and immigrant Old Gin secretly live in a tunnel beneath a newspaper printer's shop. She faces discrimination on several fronts. She’s an orphan, female, and Chinese .

An intelligent and resourceful young woman, she is determined to protect Old Gin and rise above her current circumstances. She finds a way, pseudonymously penning a local newspaper's advice column "Dear Miss Sweetie." Many questions are of the mundane sort: unruly children, troubled marriages, making a hat fit properly. She doesn’t stop there. Under the cloak of anonymity, she speaks out forcefully on racial and gender inequality. Her column is a success and newspaper subscriptions skyrocket.

Born in the Philippines but raised in the United States, seventeen-year-old Jay learns that his Filipino cousin is dead. Stunned by the tragedy and his family’s reluctance to divulge any of the details, Jay returns to the land of his birth to ascertain what happened to his gentle, thoughtful relative.
​Tracing the life of Jun is challenging. The family is unwilling to discuss anything about him or his life. Jay suspects a cover-up and wants to learn the truth.
He is startled by what he eventually finds and realizes that surviving can be dangerous for a young man trying to make his way through a drug-infested sub-culture.
Ultimately Jay develops an appreciation for his Filipino heritage and decides to make a major life change.
​Hopeful, heart-wrenching, unforgettable storytelling.

Devastated by the disappearance of her friend, investigative reporter Sara Zapata discovers the astonishing number of young girls who have gone missing. Her published news articles begin to draw attention. As she searches for answers, things take a frightening turn when she discovers that key pieces of information are missing. Her family is threatened and her home is no longer a safe place. Sara learns that her brother may have jeopardized the family's future by a decision which will brings him into the influence of the drug cartel. Will she find her friend? Can she protect her family? Sara will risk all to discover the truth and remain true to herself.

Seeking asylum and crossing the border from Mexico into the United States make this book particularly relevant.

​Pub date: April 26, 2016  Publisher: Scholastic ISBN: 978-1338032352

Best friends Libby and May invented Princess X, a comic featuring a sword-wielding warrior princess wearing a gold crown and red sneakers. One fateful night Libby's mother fell asleep while driving across a bridge. The car tumbled into the icy water with Libby and her mother trapped inside. Libby is dead. Princess X is no more.
Three years later May discovers Princess X stickers directing her to a website. She wonders: Why this sudden reappearance of Princess X? May sets off on a dangerous mission to uncover what happened that fateful night. Her quest pits her wits and her nerve against a cunning man with a deranged plan. A can't-put-it-down combination comic and prose thriller. ​​

The Year We Fell From Space is a searing portrait of a young girl in conflict.
​Liberty Johansen distances herself from her classmates when she refuses to participate in school playground activities such as marriages and excommunications. And she’s not afraid to let her views be known.
​It’s stupid...We’re in sixth grade. Having weddings is stupid.

​She shoulders a massive self-imposed burden, trying to keep her family together, attempting to maintain peace and a sense of normalcy in situations which are beyond her control.
She is fascinated with astronomy and creates her own star maps. Her interest in the stars becomes her safe place. She discovers an unusual rock and believes that it is a meteorite, sent from the skies directly to her. The rock becomes her solace, her companion, and her confidante.

Lib views herself and her world through the lens of her current circumstances: sixth-grade outcast, protector for her younger sister, and dutiful daughter to her separated parents.

Liberty's life is filled with hikes, gazing at the night sky, campfires, and s'mores. And smeelings.
​
Smeelings are "smells that make feelings."
I'm sending a toasted gooey s'more with lots of smeelings to King. Thanks for this poignant portrayal of a young girl and her family coping with mental illness. Its a story that has found a home in my heart.

Reynolds has penned a novel comprised of interconnected stories. Read independently they are insightful vignettes, zeroing in on the ten city blocks students attending Lattimer Middle School traverse each day. Collectively the stories reveal the hearts of those bound together by geography. The lives of these unique individuals intersect in unexpected ways.

In the push and pull of everyday life, we meet students affected by life-altering events such as sickle cell anemia, cancer, dementia, incarceration, and gay-shaming.

These ten blocks are jam-packed with a rich assortment of sensory details.

Emilia Rosa is juggling a plethora of problems. Let's start with family. Dad, a Marine who was deployed during most of of her childhood, returns home. He seems to be a different person from the father she remembers. Mami, who keeps Emilia focused and organized, will be away on an extended business trip. Abuela, her maternal grandmother has definite notions about Emilia’s life, including the need for a quinceañera. This is something she emphatically does not want.

Sixth grade is a struggle. Not because she isn't intelligent, but because she processes stimuli in a different way. She needs time and individual attention in order to complete her homework. Some school assignments are difficult to untangle without guidance from her mother.The noises associated with school rallies in the gym are a horrific assault on her senses.

Olympia lives in a world of artists: her mother a painter turned sculptor, her father an art restorer, and her father's studiomate Apollo. She enjoys assisting Apollo with grinding pigments and mixing his own paints. She too is an artist. But her medium is the Blackwing 602 pencil. She works strictly in black, white, and grey. 
When events force her to temporarily give up sketching, she turns to watercolor. Her experiments with this medium reminded me of my early forays into the magic of pigments mixed with water and then applied to pristine white paper. I unearthed some of my childhood watercolors and paired them with some of Olympia's observations on color, art, and life.

Home is a Window is a quiet little treasure. wrapping youngsters who face change in a reassuring embrace. 
​Title page features a busy urban neighborhood, filled with homes and shops, pets and people. Observant readers will notice a young girl walking her dog. With the first page turn, she steps off the street and enters her home.

Stephanie Parsley Ledyard's descriptive text enumerates the comforting familiarity of simple things: a basket for your shoes, someone to help, a blanket all your own.

The Line Tender is a book of many things: A moving recital of the stages of grief. Fascinating glimpse into the world of sharks and marine ecosystems.  ​Description of a friendship which may be something more. Above all, it's story of a girl who discovers a part of herself that she never expected to find.

Lucy Everhart lives in a small town on the Massachusetts Coast. Her father is a member of the Salem Police dive team. Her mother, a marine biologist with a special interest in sharks died five years ago of a brain aneurysm. Lucy and her next-door neighbor Fred are inseparable companions. Recently they undertook a monumental summer project: creating a field guide to document Rockport animals. Fred, the detail-oriented science nerd writes the copy. Lucy illustrates.

 Without warning, Fred dies in a tragic drowning accident.

Lucy’s narrative is raw, painful, and honest.  Her struggles to make sense of the deaths of her friend and her mother are revealed in simple details. Her voice is one of wonder, hope and small moments of joy.

Abandoned by her mother and placed in foster care, eleven-year-old December Lee Morgan has developed her own survival strategy. Convinced that she is a bird and that the scar on her back conceals a magnificent pair of wings waiting to unfurl, she spends countless hours high up in trees, jumping off in preparation for the time when she can fly. She restricts her diet to foods that birds might consume, chiefly sunflower seeds.

This makes her a problematic placement. Moving from one family to another, she is eventually placed in the home of Eleanor, who works at an animal rehabilitation center. In her spare time, she enjoys taxidermy. Upon learning this, December is horrified and speculates that this Bird Girl will be the next specimen to be killed and stuffed.
​December absconds with one of Eleanor's projects: a stuffed owl. She decides to carry the owl with her in her backpack.

Then there is the problem of Bird Girl sneaking off, climbing trees, and attempting to fly from the topmost branches. Alone. After dark.