Beth Vrabel

Twelve-year-old Caleb is shorter, frailer, and more protected than most kids his age. That's because he has cystic fibrosis, a diagnosis meaning lungs that fill with mucus and a shortened lifespan. Caleb tries not to let his disorder define him, but it can be hard with an overprotective mom and a perfect big brother. Then Caleb meets Kit. Instantly, his world changes...She calls birds down from the sky and turns every day into an adventure...But being...

Leaving her best friend and the familiarity of Seattle for the paper mill town of "Stinkville," South Carolina, twelve-year-old Alice, who lives with albinism and blindness, takes on the additional challenge of entering the Stinkville Success Stories essay contest.

After her grandmother, a marvelous storyteller, dies, fourth-grader Trixy, accompanied by her friend Raymond, runs away to learn about her grandmother's mysterious past.