Susan Shreve

Can the right pair of shoes make *anyone* feel beautiful?Franny is constantly embarrassed by two things in her life. One is her right foot, which curls in from a birth defect, so she has to wear ugly, heavy orthopedic shoes. And the other is her mother Margaret: beautiful, extravagant, flamboyant -- *mortifying*, in their small Ohio town. Franny's first school dance is a disaster, so Margaret announces her latest crazy plan: They will travel...

"On the morning of her seventieth birthday, Georgianna Grove receives an unexpected letter that calls her back to Missing Lake, Wisconsin, where her mother was murdered sixty-six years earlier. Georgie's father had confessed to the murder the next morning and was carted off to a state penitentiary. Haunted by the night that took both her parents away and determined to unearth the truth, Georgie takes her reluctant family on what will become a dangerous...

When a family tragedy occurs, ten-year-old Alyssa "Blister" Reed changes schools, moves to an apartment with her depressed mother while her father gets his own place, and tries to believe her grandmother, who tells her she is "elastic" and can handle it all.

Twelve-year-old Ellie's boring summer becomes exciting when she develops a crush on her new next-door neighbor, an older boy with a troubled past, whom her parents have forbidden her to see.

Third-grader Lily, a middle child who feels neglected at home, decides to run away and take her infant sister with her.

Driving home from the beach on Labor Day, Joshua receives some shocking news from his mother: he must repeat third grade.

After finally being promoted to fourth grade in the middle of the year, Joshua is so worried about the bully who rules the fourth grade boys that he makes some unwise decisions.