Kids

A hard-bitten former search-and-rescue dog helps solve a complicated missing chicken case.

Deep in a forgotten corner of the realm of Squerb, two sisters dream about very different destinies, but when one of them sets out to fulfill her plan, they both get caught up in something unexpected.

Entering his beagle, Lucy, in a contest to be "spokespet" for Pet-O-Rama helps shy, nine-year-old Bobby get over his anxiety about speaking in front of groups of people, from his third-grade classmates to the contest judges.

When their mother starts dropping them off at the library several afternoons a week, nine-year-old William and his brother dread boredom and the overbearing librarian, but they are surprised at how things turn out.

When he decides to turn his fifth grade teacher's love of the dictionary around on her, clever Nick Allen invents a new word and begins a chain of events that quickly moves beyond his control.

Maggie resists learning cursive writing in the third grade, until she discovers that knowing how to read and write cursive promises to open up an entirely new world of knowledge for her.

Fifth-grader Anna is concerned that her baby sister Kaylee, adopted from China three months ago, is not thriving so she and her best friends, Laura and Camille, create a science project that may save the day.