Angry and humiliated when his sharecropper father is jailed for stealing food for his family, a young African-American boy grows in courage and understanding with the help of the devoted dog Sounder, and also by learning to read.
Four students, with their own individual stories, develop a special bond and attract the attention of their teacher, a paraplegic, who chooses them to represent their sixth-grade class in the Academic Bowl competition.
On a summer visit to her grandmother's cottage by the ocean, twelve-year-old Martha gains perspective on the death of a classmate, her relationship with her grandmother, her feelings for an older boy, and her plan to be a writer.
Chronicles the close friendship between two Japanese-America sisters growing up in rural Georgia during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the despair when one sister becomes terminally ill.
