Stella Batts Needs A New Name

In Needs a New Name, Stella decides to change her name after a boy from her class keeps calling her "Smella." How hard can it be to pick a new name? It's not as easy as it sounds.

What's the best day of the year? A birthday, of course! Stella Batts is turning nine, and she has big plans. Her family will be going to Pennsylvania to celebrate. That's where Stella's best friend Willa moved to, and Stella hasn't seen Willa for months. It's hard not to see your best friend for that long, so this is an important trip. But before Stella can get on the plane--DISASTER STRIKES! Now instead of a birthday weekend sleepover with Willa in Pennsylvania, Stella is stuck in a hospital room in her hometown of Somers, California, with a broken leg, doctors, nurses, and a roommate who is a stranger. What's the worst day of the year? You guessed it. Stella's birthday.

In "Who's in Charge" Stella gets a lesson in responsibility when she volunteers to watch her best friend’s dog, Bella, for a few days. The only problem with this plan is that Stella didn’t ask her mother for permission. With new baby Marco at home, Stella’s mom already has her hands full. But Grandma agrees it’s good for Stella to have some responsibility as she’s getting older. It looks as though Stella has things under control. It’s only for a few days—what could go wrong? When Bella gets loose and runs away, Stella is heartbroken. Will Stella find Bella before Evie gets back? And where does she even start to look? It’s just another day in the life of Stella Batts! In this early chapter book series, the ups and downs of Stella’s life are charmingly chronicled.

Stella is in third grade, she wants to be a writer, and her parents own a wonderful candy shop. Life should be pretty good, right?

A girl’s perfect life falls apart when her mother is arrested for a white collar crime in this novel School Library Journal calls “realistic yet positive.” Carly Wheeler lives a charmed life. Her mother is a stylist for the soap opera Lovelock Falls, she lives in a nice house, and goes to an excellent private school. But when her mom is arrested and charged with embezzlement, everything starts to unravel. There are shocking stories about her mother’s crimes in the local newspaper. Carly's friends start avoiding her. And her stepfather starts worrying about money. How can Carly put her life back together when it feels like she’s missing all the pieces?

Chance has problems fitting in at school and in his new foster home, but watching a caterpillar become a butterfly helps him let go of some of his anger.

Addison has to give a speech at school, but he'd rather be fishing or playing baseball that writing.

A heartfelt story that sensitively tackles the everyday inner turmoil of growing up and staying true to oneself. Twelve-year-old Agnes hates everything about her life: her name, her parents' divorce, her best friend's abandonment, her changing body . . . . So while staying with her dad over the summer, she decides to become someone else. She tells people she meets that her name is Chloe, she's fourteen, her parents are married, and she's a dancer and actor—just the life she wants. But Agnes's fibs quickly stack up and start to complicate her new friendships, especially with Fin, whose mysterious relative runs a local raptor rehab center that fascinates Agnes. The birds, given time and care, heal and fly back home. Agnes, too, wants to get back to wherever she truly belongs. But first she must come to see the good in her real life, however flawed and messy it is, and be honest with her friends, her family, and herself.

"Clever, quippy dialogue and enjoyable first-person voice make the sassy, inner-monologuing Lucy a pleasure of a protagonist...A sweet, sincere look at the complexities of female friendship between competitive athletes. This book tackles a lot and scores at every turn." —Booklist Seventeen-year-old Lucy "Lucky" Graves is devoted to her championship rugby team, but her dreams of a scholarship are destroyed when she breaks her ankle during an important game. If it doesn't heal properly, Lucy could be benched for the rest of the year. Goodbye pro career, goodbye college, goodbye future. Without rugby, who is she? Now her anxiety and OCD are getting worse, and a past trauma has resurfaced to haunt her. Lucy needs to stop running from her past to discover what it really means to be a team player.

Since the day Emerson Pressman and her mother were diagnosed as HIV positive, nothing has been the same. When her mother dies of AIDS, Emmy has to go live with the father and stepmother she barely knows, and she feels more alone than ever. Now she has to take pills by herself, and there is no one left who understands what it's like to be afraid every time she has a cold. But when her father decides to send her to Camp Positive, a camp for HIV-positive children, Emmy begins to realize that she's not alone after all, and that sometimes, opening up to other people can make all the difference in the world.