single-parent families

"Jayden Jackson is always in trouble. He has a quick temper and gets detention on the regular. When Jayden meets rule-following Eli, they find common ground in the music they love. But Jayden can't tell Eli the truth behind his anger: that his dad is in jail. Jayden has fun hanging out with Eli, but can he really let another person in and show them who he really is?"--Provided by the publisher.

"Thirteen-year-old Jeff's life spirals downward into homelessness after his alcoholic mother loses her job"--Provided by publisher.

After the death of her mother, Texas sixth-grader Lina's grades and mood drop as she watches her father lose himself more and more in books, while her best friend uses Lina as an excuse to secretly meet her boyfriend.

When high school sophomore Mason finds a beautiful, catatonic girl in the nursing home where his mother works, his discovery leads him to revelations about a series of disturbing human experiments with a connection to his own life.

Thirteen-year-old Drew starts the summer of 1986 helping in her mother's cheese shop and dreaming about co-worker Nick, but when her widowed mother begins dating, Drew's father's book of lists, her pet rat, and Emmett--a boy who is on a quest of his own--help her cope.

A little girl introduces her best friend through a collection of thirteen poems.

Since money is tight every Thursday, the day before his mother gets her paycheck, Andre is upset when he realizes his report card and the promised celebration for making the honor roll will come on a Thursday.

Twelve-year-old Jane, who lives at the beach in a run-down old house with her mother, two brothers, and sister, has an eventful summer accompanying her pastor on Bible deliveries, meeting former boyfriends of her mother's, and being coerced into babysitting for a family of ill-mannered children.

Determined not to be weird all his life like his neighbor, Charley Maplewood decides to throw himself a tenth birthday party, complete with a "house of horrors" theme, but first he will have to make some friends to invite.

After his mother's disappearance, Charlie became a bullied loner, obsessed with UFO sightings, so when new student Seth wants to be his friend, Charlie is suspicious.