Overweight sixteen-year-old Charlie yearned for her first kiss while her perfect best friend, Amelia, fell in love, so when she finally starts dating and learns the boy asked Amelia out first, she is devastated. "Charlie Vega is smart, funny, artistic, ambitious. And fat. People sometimes have a problem with that last one. Especially her mom. The world wants Charlie to be thinner, lighter, slimmer-faced, straighter-haired, like her best friend Amelia....

"Shay desperately wants to feel loved and wanted--to be part of a real family. She thought that finally meeting her real father, a famous horse trainer, might change her life for the better. And it did. Sort of. She's more inspired to work with horses now, for sure, but a "normal" family--like her friends talk about--doesn't seem like it's in her future. Living with her aunt and working with horses every day doesn't seem to give her the love and acceptance...

"Alcanzar la mayoría de edad siendo una chica gorda y morena en un suburbio blanco de Connecticut es difícil. Más aún cuando toda tu vida parece estar en llamas. Charlie Vega es muchas cosas: Inteligente. Divertida. Artística. Ambiciosa. Gorda. La gente a veces tiene problemas con esto último, especialmente su madre. Charlie quiere tener una buena relación con su cuerpo, pero es difícil. Y no ayuda el hecho de que su madre le deje...

Ed Kennedy is an underage cabdriver without much of a future. He's pathetic at playing cards, hopelessly in love with his best friend, Audrey, and utterly devoted to his coffee-drinking dog, the Doorman. His life is one of peaceful routine and incompetence until he inadvertently stops a bank robbery. That's when the first ace arrives in the mail. That's when Ed becomes the messenger. Chosen to care, he makes his way through town helping and hurting...

Thirteen-year-old Russell Pruitt, abandoned by his mother, follows his father to dilapidated 1950s Marshfield, California where he is forced to fend for himself against a ring of malicious bullies.

When one of the boys on the wrestling team she manages calls her a "practice girl", someone to hook up with but not to date, high-school senior Jo is forced to examine uncomfortable truths about her relationships, from her best friend to the boy she likes, before better understanding her real worth. At a party, Jo Beckett finds out that the boys on the wrestling team she manages consider her a "practice girl": good enough to hook up with but not...

"Haylah Swinton is an ace best friend, a loving daughter, and an incredibly patient sister to a four-year-old nutcase of a brother. Best of all, she's pretty confident she's mastered making light of every situation--from her mom's new boyfriend to unsolicited remarks on her plus-sized figure. Haylah's learning to embrace all of her curvy parts and, besides, she has a secret: one day, she'll be a stand-up comedian star. So when impossibly cool and...

Inspired by his family experiences and his father's paintings, a young boy creates four poems.