"A grab bag of deliciously dark short fiction set in middle school that explores anxieties and twists them into funny, resonant, and reassuring psychological thrills"--

Moving on with her Cupcake Club friends despite lingering resentment over being ditched by her former best friend for a more popular group, Katie resolves to confront Callie and struggles to find ways to repair the friendship.

Thirteen-year-old Kayla endures the tidal wave of contemporary suburban adolescence as she makes her way through the last week of middle school (the end of her thus far disastrous eighth grade year) before she begins high school.

Alexis Becker loves to organize and plan and set goals, which is why she is in charge of the business end of the Cupcake Club. But when she suddenly develops a major crush on Matt Taylor - who happens to be Emma's brother - things get a little disorganized.

"Damaged finds Mary DiNunzio, partner at the all-female law firm of Rosato & DiNunzio, embroiled in one of her most heartbreaking cases yet. Suing the Philadelphia school district to get help for a middle school boy with emotional issues, Mary ends up becoming the guardian ad litem of her minor client. As she goes up against Nick Machiavelli, her opposing counsel and the dark prince of South Philly lawyers who will use any means necessary to defeat...

Someone steals the book bag of 6th-grader Chase Cooper and things get worse from there. Now Chase is number one on the Buchanan School's most wanted list and he discovers the Red Ninja Clan. Ninjas never quit - and neither do their enemies.

"Katie has a tough time keeping one secret...what happens when she has to keep four? All of the cupcake girls have secrets and are ready to burst! Katie loves knowing a secret; it's just tough for her to keep them! And in this story all her friends have told her a secret! From new crushes to someone cheating on a math test, Katie doesn't know what to do with all of this juicy information! Can the Cupcake Club survive with everyone keeping secrets...

Jenny and Addie are running for sixth grade class president.

Journalist Robbins explores the ways group identity theories play out among cliques--and the students they exclude. She reveals the new labels students stick onto each other today, the long-term effects of this marginalization, and the reasons students in these categories are often shunned. Then she celebrates them. The homogenization of the US education system has made outcasts more important than ever. In this conformist, creativity-stifling society,...

"The fifth grade. The threshold to puberty, and the beginning of the end of childhood innocence. Shuichi Nitori and his new friend Yoshino Takatsuki have happy homes, loving families, and are well-liked by their classmates. But they share a secret that further complicates a time of life that is awkward for anyone: Shuichi is a boy who wants to be a girl, and Yoshino is a girl who wants to be a boy"--Publisher's web site.