Bedford Library: If You Like Smile...

Best friends Lydia Goldblatt and Julie Graham-Chang are as ready as they'll ever be to start junior high. But before they can try out the lessons they've learned about friendship and popularity, tragedy strikes: Lydia's mom is moving her family to London for six months. Separated for the first time, each of the girls must face bullies, secrets, and the challenge of standing up for herself. With the help of their trusty notebook, they try to keep...

Through a series of letters, Sophie Brown, age twelve, tells of her family's move to her Great Uncle Jim's farm, where she begins taking care of some unusual chickens with help from neighbors and friends.

"In one day, four lives weave together in unexpected ways. Virgil Salinas is shy and kindhearted and feels out of place in his crazy-about-sports family. Valencia Somerset, who is deaf, is smart, brave, and secretly lonely, and she loves everything about nature. Kaori Tanaka is a self-proclaimed psychic, whose little sister, Gen, is always following her around. And Chet Bullens wishes the weird kids would just stop being so different so he can concentrate...

Knowing very little English, eleven-year-old Jingwen feels like an alien when his family immigrates to Australia, but copes with loneliness and the loss of his father by baking elaborate cakes.

Augusta writes letters to her younger sister, Louie, about life in middle school, from tackling a new school building to meeting new people like the assistant principal, the class pet, and the renegade.

Merci embarks on a seventh grade year shaped by high teacher expectations, a crush on a school-store co-worker, and a bossy classmate's plan for the annual Heart Ball.

"Rahul Kapoor is heading into seventh grade in a small town in Indiana. The start of middle school is making him feel increasingly anxious, so his favorite person in the whole world, his grandfather Bhai, gives him some well-meaning advice: Find one thing you're really good at. And become the BEST at it. Those four little words sear themselves into Rahul's brain. While he's not quite sure what that special thing is, he is convinced that once he finds...

Ghost. Lu. Patina. Sunny. Four kids from wildly different backgrounds with personalities that are explosive when they clash. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school track team -- a team that could qualify them for the Junior Olympics if they can get their acts together. They all have a lot to lose, but they also have a lot to prove, not only to each other, but to themselves. Ghost has a crazy natural talent, but no formal training....

"Sunny is the chillest dude on the Defenders, an elite middle school track team. Secretly though, Sunny thinks himself as a murderer because his mother died giving birth to him. And the way Sunny's dad treats him doesn't help; it seems the only thing Sunny can do right in his dad's eyes is win races. But Sunny has never liked running; he'd rather dance. So Coach helps Sunny discover a track event that encompasses the hard hits of hip-hop, the precision...

Fifth-grader Penny writes a series of letters to her future sibling, including facts about their Oakland, California, home, questions about whether their moms will ever marry, and especially that he or she is loved.