Sagamore Middle School

A middle school football player grieves his father's death both on and off the field.Tommy Gallagher, defensive star "monster back" (a flexible position that can shift between safety and linebacker as necessary to make big plays), is having a phenomenal game when tragedy strikes: his firefighter father doesn't make it out of a burning building in time. Tommy has a strong support system but struggles to see that he's bottling up his emotions and then releasing them in unhealthy ways playing. Once he understands this, however, he then starts erring the other way, playing football with too much hesitancy and not enough joy. His path to overcoming grief is not linear, punctuated instead with believable backslides. 

At first glance, though, Wormwood seems mostly depressing. Like most other Wugs, 14-year-old Vega Jane is dirty, hungry, and deprived. The few things that keep her going are her friend Delph; her brother, John; and a tree where she goes to ponder. (Pondering is in short supply in Wormwood.) She also has her job at the Stacks, putting the finishing touches on pretty objects. But everything changes one morning when she spies her mentor, Quentin Herms, heading into the Quag, the terrifying forest that surrounds Wormwood. There are beasts inside the Quag, and supposedly nothing past it, so why would Herms run? The cryptic note he leaves behind raises more questions, and despite danger from many directions, Vega is a girl who wants answers.

Fourteen-year-old Mercer Buddie is a falconer-in-training wanting desperately to earn the Best Apprentice pin and prove himself to his father at the same time. Mercer's father, a wildlife rehabilitation specialist, runs the Buddie Bird Rehab Center. On their way out on a trapping expedition, Mercer happens to meet a girl in the pet store and is instantly smitten. She's the prettiest girl he's ever seen: gorgeous green eyes and "elbow-length hair the white-blond color of candlelight." The trouble is, Lucy and her parents are members of HALT, a fanatical animal rights organization opposing mistreatment of animals, including the caging of hawks. Can a white boy in love with raptors fall in love with a girl who opposes everything he stands for? It's a Romeo and Juliet-style quandary that turns ugly when members of HALT vandalize the Buddies' rehabilitation center and release the birds. Mercer must take responsibility, do what's right, and decide what is most important to him in life.

The son of the Irish ambassador to Germany poses as a member of the Hitler Youth in order to support the Allies during World War II. Just like his parents, 13-year-old Michael O'Shaunessey, from the politically neutral country of Ireland, becomes a spy in Nazi Germany. When a downed British pilot alerts him to the existence of Projekt 1065—an effort by Nazi Germany to build a faster warplane that works without propellers—Michael discovers that his classmate Fritz's father is designing the plane, which gives him remarkable access to the blueprints. Michael's photographic memory comes in handy for remembering enemy codes and formulas. When, as a junior Gestapo, he joins the group assigned to assassinate a Jewish physicist who is working on developing an American atom bomb, he becomes embroiled in a complex drama of espionage and betrayal.