With insight and a light touch, best-selling, Newbery Honor-winning author Gary D. Schmidt tells two poignant, linked stories: that of a grieving girl and a boy trying to escape his violent past. Following the death of her closest friend in summer 1968, Meryl Lee Kowalski goes off to St. Elene's Preparatory Academy for Girls, where she struggles to navigate the venerable boarding school's traditions and a social structure heavily weighted toward students...

In 1989 someone is threatening to steal the crown jewels, so the Queen of England summons Mac B. to England to protect them--and when they are stolen from a locked dungeon cell, where Mac and Holcroft, one of the warders, are supposed to be guarding them, it is up to Mac to figure out how they were stolen, and whether the thief is the descendant of an Irish soldier-of-fortune who tried to steal them in 1671, or someone else entirely.

Eva's teacher, Miss Featherbottom, is getting married, but when her special necklace disappears, Eva and her friends set out to track down the thief and return the necklace before the wedding.

Nax and a handful of other space Academy washouts are the only surviving pilots after the school is hijacked by terrorists, but in order to spread the truth about the attack, Nax and his fellow failures must execute a dangerous heist.--

"This is a story of stolen violins. It's got mummies, museums, sandwiches, hostages, and a dangerous showdown with the Russian Red Army Choir. Open this book to find out more about my adventures. But beware--this mission is top secret and very dangerous!" -- cover.

Griffin Bing is in big trouble when a Super Bowl ring disappears from his middle school's display case, replaced by Griffin's retainer, and the more he and his friends investigate, the worse his situation becomes.

Birdie Gaux's dog, Bowser, considers himself in charge of security at 19 Gentilly Lane, so when the house is broken into Bowser wants to find the man with the limeade aftershave (and the cat) responsible--but nobody seems to know what the culprits were looking for, or why a strange girl is asking questions about Birdie's father, a policeman who was killed in the line of duty years before Bowser was adopted.

Eleven-year-old Amelia thinks of herself as devoid of talent, but when the dragonfly staff goes missing seven days before the Dragonfly Day Festival, she takes it upon herself to catch the thief and save her town.

"When we last left our hero, Max Crumbly, he had crash-landed on top of a Mighty Meat Monster pizza after taking a late night tumble through the vents at South Ridge Middle School--and he was completely surrounded by three ruthless criminals! Will Max be shredded to bits like mozzarella cheese on the hard and crunchy pizza crust of doom? Can his friend and sidekick, computer whiz Erin, help get him out of this sticky situation alive?"--Page 4 of cover....

Sixth-grader Alton Ziegler loves maps, and when his portfolio of secret maps is stolen, he begins getting notes with orders that he must obey to get the maps back but, with the help of a popular classmate, he just might succeed before his teacher, principal, or someone else learns he has been studying and mapping things about them.