Struggling with issues of popularity in junior high school, trying to understand her too-perfect mother, dealing with her feelings about friends, and coming to terms with Grandma Margie's cancer diagnosis and illness, Kay is awhirl with questions that have no easy answers. But Kay is a survivor, and as she journeys through these...

Dad's words come as a complete shock to Essie. How can he just walk out on her and the family, especially when Mom is pregnant?

Essie keeps her dad's leaving a secret. Then Essie's classmate, Chris Crow, disappears, and everyone finds out he's been kidnapped. Is Chris okay? Is Dad ever coming back? Essie is left to wonder if people really have any control over what happens in their lives.

Finally, after a startling incident with a family friend, Essie finds the strength to hold on tight to all that she has left -- and in the process realizes that the bonds of...

For as long as she can remember, Clare and her family have had a dream: Someday Clare will be a dancer in City Ballet Company. For ten long years Clare has been taking ballet lessons, watching what she eats, giving up friends and a social life, and practicing until her feet bleed -- all for the sake of that...

After receiving a full-ride scholarship to Mills College for Girls, it appears Sarah's future is clear ... until she walks into a poetry class led by Mr. Haddings, a student teacher from the

nearby University of Washington. Suddenly, life on the UW campus seems very appealing, and Sarah finds herself using her poetry journal to subtly declare her feelings for Mr. Haddings. Convinced he is flirting back, she sets off for school in the rain with a poem in her back pocket--one that says how she really feels.

But everything changes when Mr. Haddings feels a thud on his front bumper...