Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree by Lauren Tarshis

"Emma Jean sees the world a bit differently from most of the seventh graders at her school. She is a master of observation, though she doesn't always understand why people act the way they do. She remains detached and it's very hard to get under her skin, so even though she doesn't have any friends her age, she's not bothered by that fact. When she comes upon Colleen crying in the bathroom, Emma Jean discovers that she can use her problem-solving abilities to help her fellow students. And so she proceeds to "help" Colleen with a project that eventually backfires mightily.

Colleen is pretty much the exact opposite of Emma Jean. She lets EVERYTHING get under her skin and is quite prone to crying in the bathroom (or her bedroom or her church or the car or...). At first grateful for Emma Jean's listening ear, Colleen is horrified when she finds out what Emma Jean's done to help. Colleen is certain her life is over. When she's finally able to talk out her problems, she finds that maybe what Emma Jean did was not so bad. And maybe Colleen needs to take another look at her own perceptions of the people in her life.

Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George

Orphaned Creel is taken in by poor relatives, including her silly aunt who hatches a plan to get the girl captured by a dragon so that a knight will rescue her and marry her, thus lifting the rest of the family out of poverty. However, the dragon wants no part of this arrangement, and in order to avoid the trouble of fighting a knight, agrees to let Creel select one item from his hoard (he collects shoes) and encourages her in her ambitions to become a seamstress in the royal city. Unbeknownst to Creel, the simple blue slippers she selects have a history that dates back centuries and the power to control dragons. When the slippers fall into the wrong hands, Creel may be the only one able to turn the tide of the war that threatens her country.

Crossing the Wire by Will Hobbs

When falling crop prices threaten his family with starvation, fifteen-year-old Victor Flores heads north in an attempt to "cross the wire" from Mexico into the United States so he can find work and send money home. But with no coyote money to pay the smugglers who sneak illegal workers across the border, Victor must struggle to survive as he jumps trains, stows away on trucks, and hikes grueling miles through the Arizona desert. Victor's journey is fraught with danger, freezing cold, scorching heat, hunger, and dead ends.

A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban

Ten-year-old Zoe Elias dreams of playing a baby grand piano at Carnegie Hall. But when Dad ventures to the music store and ends up with a wheezy organ instead of a piano, Zoe's dreams hit a sour note. Learning the organ versions of old TV theme songs just isn't the same as mastering Beethoven on the piano. And the organ isn't the only part of Zoe's life that's off-kilter, what with Mom constantly at work, Dad afraid to leave the house, and that odd boy, Wheeler Diggs, following her home from school every day. Yet when Zoe enters the annual Perform-O-Rama organ competition, she finds that life is full of surprises--and that perfection may be even better when it's just a little off center.

All the Lovely Bad Ones by Mary Downing Hahn

Travis and his sister, Corey, can’t resist a good trick—so when they learn that their grandmother’s sleepy Vermont inn has a history of ghost sightings, they decide to do a little “haunting” of their own. Scaring the guests proves to be great fun, and before long, the inn is filled with tourists and ghost hunters eager for a glimpse of the supernatural. But Travis and Corey soon find out that they aren’t the only ghosts at Fox Hill Inn. Their
thoughtless games have awakened something dangerous, something that should have stayed asleep. Restless, spiteful spirits swarm the inn, while a dark and terrifying
presence stalks the halls and the old oak grove on the inn’s grounds. To lay the ghosts to rest, Travis and Corey must first discover the dark history of Fox Hill and the horrors
visited on its inhabitants years earlier.