Winner of the California Young Reader Medal in the high school category and an ALA Best Book of the Year. Following the death of his parents in a car accident, fifteen-year-old Matt McKendrick runs away from his hometown with his small, deaf sister, Katie, to prevent her from being placed in an institution. Reaching Los Angeles exhausted and hungry, they take refuge in an abandoned theater. When Matt returns to the theater after an unsuccessful day hunting for work, he finds Katie gone and the police waiting to accuse him of murder. Alone in a city of strangers, Matt sets out on a desperate...

Steeling himself against the agonies of returning to his hometown where memories of his lost family can no longer be buried, Matt McKendrick spends a tumultuous summer working on a guest ranch with four of his closest friends and one of his oldest enemies. By summers' end, each of them will be forced to make an impossible choice.

Cutting Loose is the fourth book in the series.

In his senior year, forced at every track meet to face the hatred of strangers who think he killed a little girl and got away with it, Matt McKendrick is determined to earn the Runner of the Year Award and to prove that no matter what they do, they can't make him quit. His strongest rival is a black athlete as outstanding as he is. Only one of them can win the award, and only one does.

Losers and Winners is the third book in the series.