Steve is King of the Bench. No brag. It{u2019}s just a fact. But this year, Steve and his friends are excited to try out for the Spiro T. Agnew Middle School baseball team. The only problem is, after watching another player get beaned by a fastball, Steve has developed a serious case of bean-o-phobia{u2014}the fear of getting hit by a pitch. If Steve ever wants to get off the bench and get in the game, he{u2019}s going to have to muster up some courage,...

Zoey{u2019}s school is having a dance, and everyone is talking about whom to ask and what to wear. Zoey gets to work sewing special dresses for her friends, and the girls make a pact to ask their crushes. Things seem all zipped up{u2026}until Zoey gets a phone call from her favorite reality show, Fashion Showdown! The producer wants Zoey to be a guest judge on an upcoming episode. It{u2019}s shaping up to be a fashion fairy tale, but then reality...

There's a new after school club at Ironville Middle School. Ms. Peterson is starting a video game club where the students will playing The Good War, a new game based on World War II. They are divided into two teams: Axis and Allies, and they will be simulating a war they know nothing about yet. Only one team will win. But what starts out as friendly competition, takes an unexpected turn for the worst when an one player takes the game too far. Can...

"Oceans 11 goes to the arcade in this wildly entertaining heist adventure. We do this my way. No one gets hurt. And if I call it off, it's off. Got it? My name's Darius James--but everyone calls me DJ. At my old school, I was the go-to guy for all kinds of tricky problems that needed creative solutions. But at my new school, Ella Fitzgerald Middle, I'm just trying to blend in. Well, I was, anyway, until my best friend, Conor, got himself transferred...

"Oliver has a lot going on starting his first year of middle school--new friends, new classes, new everything. But at least there's one thing that still makes sense: science! Determined to be an astrophysicist one day, Oliver explains everything he learns--like how the sun burps, how ghost particles fly through you, the uncanny similarities between Mercury and cafeteria meatballs, and most important, how the Big Bang is basically just like a fart...

"Things are ruff for Hope Roberts. After learning that the local animal shelter might close, Hope decides to do whatever it takes to stop that from happening. Eastern Shore Animal Shelter is where Hope found her two furry best friends. It has to stay open so the other animals can find their fur-ever homes, too! But when the shelter moves up their last day, Hope knows she has to work fast. Can she rally enough support from her community to keep the...

Filomena Jefferson-Cho and her friends, Jack Stalker, Alistair, and Gretel are once again in Never After, to help Gretel fulfill a promise to her father to recover the glass slipper he made for her cousin, Hortense, which was stolen by the cunning and manipulative Cinderella, who is determined to become Princess of Eastphalia--to do that the friends will have to infiltrate the castle, and, of course, avoid being eaten by monsters.

"A Banksy-style protest against cameras in classrooms brings a group of middle-grade students together. For fans of Rebecca Stead, Susin Nielsen and Gordon Korman. Dominica's private school is covered in cameras, and someone is hacking into them and posting embarrassing moments for the whole school to see. Like Ana picking her nose. When Dominica quickly changes her shirt from inside out in what she thinks is the privacy of a quiet corner in the library,...

"Would-be amusement park aficionado Dalia only has two items on her summer bucket list: (1) finally ride a roller coaster and (2) figure out how to make a new best friend. But when her dad suddenly announces that he's engaged, Dalia's schemes come to a screeching halt. With Dalia's future stepsister Alexa heading back to college soon, the grown-ups want the girls to spend the last weeks of summer bonding--meaning Alexa has to cancel the amusement...

"Nate no soporta que la escuela Jefferson SIEMPRE les gane. Ya está bien de ser un cero a la izquierda, ¡hay que ser héroes! La primera nievetición escolar está a punto de empezar-- ¿Conseguirán construir la mejor escultura de nieve para devolver la grandeza a su escuela?"--P. [4] of cover. Big Nate Wright is president of P.S. 38, the after school cartooning club. When he doodles his observations in his cartoon notebook: "Mighty Jefferson...