While preparing for a role in the school play, twelve-year-old Leo finds an autobiography that his father wrote as a teenager and ponders the ways people change as they grow up. Includes the text for the play, "Rumpopo's Porch" at the end of the book (31 pages).

Fourteen-year-old twin basketball stars Josh and Jordan wrestle with highs and lows on and off the court as their father ignores his declining health.

"When Ryan learns his estranged father left him the Dallas Cowboys in his will, it is all Ryan can do to keep his dad's other son from snatching the team away." --

To a thirteen-year-old Vermont farm boy whose father slaughters pigs for a living, maturity comes early as he learns "doing what's got to be done," especially regarding his pet pig who cannot produce a litter.

Henry "Biggie" Abbott has hidden behind his weight for years, and although he is the son and stepson of two of Finch, Minnesota's most famous athletes, he prefers academic success until the girl of his dreams suggests he join the baseball team, and, with his stepbrother's help, he discovers he is a great pitcher.

In 1945, thirteen-year-old Levi Battle travels to find the father he has not seen in three years, going from Chicago to segregated North Carolina and finally to Pendleton, Oregon, where he learns that his father's unit, the all-black 555th paratrooper battalion, will never see combat but finally has a mission. Includes historical notes.

As Nasreddine and his father take dates, wool, chickens, or watermelon to market, people tease them no matter who is riding their donkey, and this causes Nasreddine embarrassment until his father helps him to understand.

A fictionalized biography of the Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who grew up a painfully shy child, ridiculed by his overbearing father, but who became one of the most widely-read poets in the world.

"Fourteen-year-old Robbie never knows from one day to the next if there is going to be enough to eat or if his father will even come home."--

"Ten years ago, God gave Braden a sign, a promise that his family wouldn't fall apart the way he feared. But Braden got it wrong: his older brother, Trey, has been estranged from the family for almost as long, and his father, the only parent Braden has ever known, has been accused of murder. The arrest of Braden's father, a well-known Christian radio host, has sparked national media attention. His fate lies in his son's hands; Braden is the key witness...