Ten-year-old Liam and his two younger sisters, precocious third-grader Dakota and second-grader Izzy, who has Down syndrome, face the possibility of losing their beloved dog, Cupcake, who keeps urinating on their apartment's carpet.

A teen-age girl gains new insight into herself and her family when her mentally handicapped brother gets lost.

The summer that Hattie turns twelve, she meets the childlike uncle she never knew and becomes friends with a girl who works at the carnival that comes to Hattie's small town. Twelve-year-old Hattie learns that living life fully means facing both the good times and the bad upon the closing of her Uncle Adam's "school"- an institution for the mentally disabled.

Deeply involved in his cold and manipulative mother's shady business dealings in Flint, Michigan, fourteen-year-old Luther keeps a sense of humor while running the Happy Neighbor Group Home For Men, all the while dreaming of going to college and becoming a philosopher.

Since her father's death, Cora, twelve, longs for a permanent home for herself, her special-needs sister, and their mother while navigating middle school and studying trees using her father's field notes.

Determined to become a doctor like her father when she grows up, Katy has a good sense for people and their sicknesses, so when she befriends Jacob, she sees that there is something in him that needs to be revealed.

When Dane, a bully, refuses to hit Billy D because he has Down Syndrome, Billy takes that as a sign of friendship and enlists Dane's help in solving riddles left in an atlas by his missing father, sending the pair on a risky adventure.

Now I didn't believe a broken-down old unicorn could make wishes come true...not for a minute. But, what if it could? Mags has a lot to wish for, a nice house with a mama who isn't tired out from work; a normal little sister; a brother who doesn't mooch for food; and, once in a while, she'd like some new clothes for school. When her sister Hannie finds a stuffed unicorn, Mags's wishes start to come true. She knows the unicorn can't really be magic,...

Rooster Cobb is in trouble--with his school, with his mother, with his girlfriend. He smokes too much and he hates his stepfather. In fact, he might not graduate from high school. But he just doesn't seem to care. That is until the guidance counselor and the principal come up with a plan to get Rooster through grade twelve, out of their lives forever and possibly on the right track with his life. The last thing Rooster wants to do is coach The Strikers,...

As he tries to come to terms with his mother's death, Vernon finds solace in his growing relationship with the neighborhood outcasts, an alcoholic and her retarded son.