"Science-obsessed fourth grader Nora wants to be like her scientist family and publish a professional research paper on her favorite subject: her ant farm!"--

Mason Dixon is his usual pessimistic self as he starts fourth grade, dreading joining the school choir and unenthused about his sports-obsessed teacher who plans for the students to be "making a full-court press on writing."

"Sixth grader Betsy is the one who informs her best friend, Lizard, that thousands of the world's languages are currently threatened by extinction; Betsy's mother is a linguistics professor working frantically to study dying languages before they are lost forever. But it is Lizard who, gripped by the magnitude of this loss, challenges Betsy, "What if, instead of WRITING about dying languages, like your mom, you and I SAVED one instead?" As the girls...

While trying to decide on a science fair project, third-grader Wilson struggles with fractions and, much to his embarrassment, his parents sign him up to work with a math tutor.

When fifth-grade twins, Amy and Todd, tackle a school project, they also have to cope with issues of friendship at school and problems at home, including their father's unemployment. Todd and Amy Davidson may be twins, but they're complete opposites - Todd is organized and is the family "engineer, " while Amy is outgoing and has been dubbed the "poet." So it would seem that for a fifth-grade economics project, Todd would come up with a master invention,...