Susan Beth Pfeffer

In Make Believe, Diana Athill, acclaimed author of Instead of a Letter and Stet, remembers her turbulent friendship with Hakim Jamal, a young black convert to the teachings of Malcolm X, whom she met in London in the late 1960s. Despite a desperately troubled youth, he became an eloquent spokesman for the black underclass, was Jean Seberg's lover and published a book about Malcolm X, before descending into a mania that had him believing he was God. A witness to his struggles, Diana Athill writes with her characteristic honesty about her entanglement with Jamal, Jamal's relationship with the daughter of a British MP, Gail Benson, and Jamal's, and separately Gail's, eventual murders.

The note on the kitchen counter began ''Dear Mom,'' and it ended with ''I hope you rot in hell. Love, Marly.'' Marly considered crossing out the part about rotting in hell, but it was nothing her mother hadn't said to her. She picked up her suitcase, took the twenty-doll bill her mother kept in the freezer, and walked to the bus station. Marly was leaving her mother's house, running away to live with her dad and his wife. Marly, the mousy one, the passive one, the one whose sister was a beauty queen. Marly had made a decision, radical and impulsive, and she was on the road to discovering herself. A someone she didn't know existed -- Marly, the fighter and winner.

Beth March receives a mysterious, but welcome, gift of new sheet music for the piano.

Reesa's delight in winning the junior high school essay contest vanishes as soon as she learns she is expected to read her essay to an audience of 500 people.

A support group of teenagers coping with family problems helps Amy to adjust after she's ordered to live with her mother following the discovery that her divorced father abducted her years ago.

Meg's sheltered life with her wealthy aunt changes after meeting Nick Sebastian at her sixteenth birthday party.

Distracted by her worries that her parents may get a divorce, Taryn gets in trouble with her seventh-grade English teacher and is caught up in an increasingly complicated series of lies.

When she refuses to let her friend's death be called an accident, eleven-year-old Emily, an orphan, encounters the ingrained prejudices of the "best" families in town.

In four ghost stories, set in nineteenth century Concord, Massachusetts, each of the March sisters has a supernatural encounter.

Eleven-year-old Janie advertises to do odd jobs in her neighborhood and receives so much business, she hires her friends and becomes manager of the Kid Power Agency.

A sculptor named Pyg carves a statue of a goddess so beautiful, so perfect, that he falls head over heels in love with her. He buys her gifts, tells her stories, and wishes with all his heart she were a real, live woman. The trouble with wishes is . . . sometimes they come true!

When twelve-year-old Darcy's cousin April moves into the upstairs apartment and they become inseparable, Darcy has trouble with her former best friends and her schoolwork.