Gary D Schmidt

"Jack, 12, tells the gripping story of Joseph, 14, who joins his family as a foster child. Damaged in prison, Joseph wants nothing more than to find his baby daughter, Jupiter, whom he has never seen. When Joseph has begun to believe he'll have a future, he is confronted by demons from his past that force a tragic sacrifice"--

Seventh-grader Hercules Beal has to figure out how to fulfill his teacher's assignment of performing the Twelve Labors of Hercules in real life, and discovers important things about friendship, community, and himself along the way. "Herc Beal knows who he's named after - a mythical hero - but he's no superhero. He's the smallest kid in his class. So when his homeroom teacher at his new middle school gives him the assignment of duplicating the mythical...

Sixth-grader Carter must adjust to the unwelcome presence of a know-it-all butler who is determined to help him become a gentleman, and also to deal with burdens from the past.

On a short winter day, Samuel and his father enter into a series of trades with neighbors and strangers until they come home with a brown-eyed milk cow for Mama.

Pursued by greedy villains, two boys on a quest to save innocent lives meet the banished queen whose son was stolen by Rumpelstiltskin eleven years earlier, and she provides much more than the answer they seek.

Wilson is a curious sheep, and after he foolishly climbs into the back of a piano movers' truck, he ends up alone in the big city, far from the farm. But Wilson is also one smart sheep, and soon enough he's finding his way home to his worried owner by recognizing the sounds that he heard while he was trapped in the truck -- a jackhammer, a calliope, a hotdog man. And could that be the excited barking of his friend Tippy, the border collie?

While living on his grandparents' farm in New Hampshire, Cole hears stories about a mysterious sin-eater; these stories enable Cole to learn forgiveness and to connect with his ancestors.

Dragged into the political turmoil of a presidential election year, fourteen-year-old Cooper Jewett, who runs a New Hampshire dairy farm since his grandfather's death, stands up for himself and makes it clear whose first boy he really is.

The kids in these humorous short stories each have a minor superpower they're learning to live with. One can shape-shift--but only part of her body, and only on Mondays. Another can always tell whether an avocado is perfectly ripe. One can even hear the thoughts of the animals in the pet store! But what these stories are really about is their young protagonists "owning" a power that contributes to their individuality, that allows them to find their...