Elizabeth Cody Kimmel

Middle school is an Entirely New Planet. The girls look fully grown in the most glamorous and complicated ways, and the boys look . . . well, weird. The good news? Drama Club. Real Drama Club?with actual auditions, and roles involving more than the days of the week. Phoebe Hart has waited a long time for this. The stage, after all, is the one place the ?flawed and unremarkable? Phoebe can let her inner star out. But when she learns of the opening...

When a boy finally gets exactly what he wants from Santa, he learns that owning a real penguin may not have been a good idea after all.

In a quaint New England town with a history of witches and pilgrims, misunderstood eleven-year-old Norman Babcock (who can see and talk to ghosts) must save his town from pilgrim zombies, take on an angry witch, an annoying sidekick, and his boy-crazy teenage sister, as well as dozens of moronic grown-ups who get in his way!

In 1881, sixteen-year-old Mary Ingalls becomes a student at the Iowa College for the Blind, where she studies academic subjects and learns skills that will allow her to be independent and to earn a living.

Harriet the hamster is desperate to be adopted, so she gives her sister Patricia and herself glamorous makeovers in hopes they will get more attention when Hamster World has its huge annual sale.

On Career Day, a young girl entertains the class with a description of her father's exciting job as light bulb changer at the top of the Empire State Building. Every kid loves to go with his or her parents to work, no matter what they do for a living. But imagine how cool it would be if your dad was responsible for changing the lightbulbs at the tippy-top of the Empire State Building! Readers will be amazed by the little-known details this book provides...

Twelve-year-old Tee didn't think she believed in ghosts... until a walk in the woods around her new rural Alaskan home changes her mind. She and her beagle, Henry, are stalked by a wolfish, decidedly spooky shadow. There's something out there -- and it's not of this world. With Henry and new friend Quin in tow, Tee is determined to capture evidence of the ghost and unravel the mystery of its origins. But with every sighting, the ghostly presence of...

Aspiring author and eight-grader Lily Blennerhassett hones her writing skills as her school newspaper's advice columnist while also trying to get her first crush, The Boy, to notice her.

"The eventually internationally recognized writer Lily Blennerhassett" spends her thirteenth summer missing her best friend and keeping a journal of her boring life at home and exciting newly-discovered relatives.

Like her mother, a professional medium, Kat has been able to see dead people since turning thirteen, and although they would prefer to be normal, Kat and her best friend come to terms with their own talents while helping free the spirit of a girl trapped at their middle school.