Andrew Clements

Grace and Ellie have been best friends since second grade. Ellie's always right in the center of everything--and Grace is usually happy to be Ellie's sidekick. But what happens when everything changes? This time it's Grace who suddenly has everyone's attention when she accidentally starts a new fad at school. It's a fad that has first her class, then her grade, and then the entire school collecting and trading and even fighting over . . . buttons?!...

When Abby's first letter arrives at a small school in Afghanistan, Sadeed Bayat is chosen to be her pen pal...well, kind of. He is the best writer, but he is also a boy, and in his village it is not appropriate for a boy to correspond with a girl. So his younger sister dictates and signs the letter, until Sadeed decides what his sister is telling Abby isn't what he'd like Abby to know. As letters go back and forth between Illinois and Afghanistan,...

A fifth-grader starts a newspaper with an editorial that prompts her burnt-out classroom teacher to really begin teaching again, but he is later threatened with disciplinary action as a result.

Sixth-grader Ben Pratt's life is full of changes that he does not like--his parents' separation and the plan to demolish his seaside school to build an amusement park--but when the school janitor gives him a tarnished coin with some old engravings and then dies, Ben is drawn into an effort to keep the school from being destroyed.

The fifth grade's annual camping trip in the woods tests Mark's survival skills and his ability to relate to a teacher who seems out to get him.

When he decides to turn his fifth grade teacher's love of the dictionary around on her, clever Nick Allen invents a new word and begins a chain of events that quickly moves beyond his control.

As the new Keepers of the School, sixth-graders Ben and Jill must decipher a handful of clues written as maritime riddles to save their school from demolition by a greedy company.

Fifth grader Jack finds himself the target of ridicule at school when it becomes known that his father is one of the janitors, and he turns his anger onto his father.

When Jake was three years old at Miss Lulu's Danity Diaper Day Care Center, what did he know about bullies? Nothing. But he learned fast--too fast! Why? Because Jake is kind of smart, and he's not a tattletale, and he doesn't have a big brother to protect him..."

As the end of sixth grade nears, Jordan Johnson, unhappy that she is only average in appearance, intelligence, and athletic ability, reveals her special skills when disaster strikes her central Illinois elementary school.