G.K. Hall large print for young readers

When Rabble Starkey's grandmother saw her for the first time, she said: "Look at them sea-green eyes. Look at that ginger-colored hair. Lord, Lord, trouble lies ahead for that child." So she and Rabble's mother, Sweet-Hosanna, gave her a Bible name, Parable Ann, to stave off what trouble they could. Rabble has had her share of trouble, nonetheless, by the time she is twelve. Her father left her and her fourteen-year-old mother when Rabble was one month old. The years have been hard and uncertain. More than anything, Rabble is looking for stability, and she may have found it now, living with her mother and the Bigelows. Veronica Bigelow is twelve, too, and she's more than Rabble's best friend; she's like a sister. When illness takes Veronica's mother to a distant hospital for months, and Sweet-Hosanna must assume her role, something that feels like a family is formed. And for Rabble, it feels like forever. Lois Lowry has peopled a small Appalachian town with rich, realistic characters: Gunther Bigelow, the homeliest baby in Highriver; Millie Bellows, who spends her last lonely days staring at TV quiz shows and faded family photographs; and Norman Cox, whose world is one of weaponry. Among them Rabble is passing a year that will change her forever, and Lois Lowry is making an unforgettable statement about the nature of families and the value of growth, change, and love. - Jacket flap.

At fourteen, Rosie, her mother, her best friend, and her best friend's father form a new family unit and find it takes a lot of work to make a family in a world of changing relationships.

Eleven-year-old Lily has grown closer to her thirteen-year-old brother Paul during the spring their family has spent on the Greek island Thasos, until the unpredictable behavior of another American boy disrupts their lives.

A boy is puzzled by the comic and confusing questions of youth and worried by disturbing insights into adult conflicts.

Junior Brown, an overprotected three-hundred pound musical prodigy who's prone to having fantasies, and Buddy Clark, a loner who lives by his wits because he has no family whatsoever, have been on the hook from their eighth-grade classroom all semester. Most of the time they have been in the school building -- in a secret cellar room behind a false wall, where Mr. Pool, the janitor, has made a model of the solar system. They have been pressing their luck for months...and then they are caught. As society -- in the form of a zealous assistant principal -- closes in on them, Junior's fantasies become more desperate, and Buddy draws on all his resources to ensure his friend's well-being.