Johanna Knowles

"For thirteen-year-old Rachel, summer is meant to be a time of long days of swimming at the lake and hanging out with her best friend, Micah. And this year she has a summer job, taking care of the animals at the small hobby farm across the road. The chickens and pig are challenging, but she loves looking after the gentle horses and goats, and especially the adorable baby steer. At home, though, things are complicated. Her parents seem more worries...

Thanks to a bully in gym class, unpopular Nate suffers a broken finger--the middle one, splinted to flip off the world. It won't be the last time a middle finger is raised on this day. Dreamer Claire envisions herself sitting in an artsy café, filling a journal, but fate has other plans. One cheerleader dates a closeted basketball star; another questions just how, as a "big girl," she fits in. A group of boys scam drivers for beer money without remorse--or...

Twelve-year-old Fern feels invisible in her family, where grumpy eighteen-year-old Sarah is working at the family restaurant, fourteen-year-old Holden is struggling with school bullies and his emerging homosexuality, and adorable, three-year-old Charlie is always the center of attention, and when tragedy strikes, the fragile bond holding the family together is stretched almost to the breaking point.

"Ivy loves living in Applewood Heights. The family's apartment is tiny, and her older sister, Rachel, won't stop grumbling about sharing a room after their old house was lost to foreclosure ... Ivy finds much-needed reassurance, and a boost of confidence, when she starts working with the building superintendent ... Ivy has a natural talent, but she comes to realize that some things--like hurt feelings--are harder to fix than others ... as she tries...