Betsy Byars

As they wait out a tornado in their storm cellar, a family listens to their farmhand tell stories about the dog that was blown into his life by another tornado when he was a boy.

Question one: How is it possible to fall in love with three girls in one day in a single English class?
Bingo Brown is an average sixth grader with an unusually serious approach to the business of being twelve. He's got some "burning questions"—why does he get such wild crushes on girls? How can he avoid the school bully? Why is his favorite teacher acting so strangely?—and he's determined to figure them out. This first entry...

Algebra is hard, but love is harder
For a twelve-year-old, Bingo Brown has a lot figured out. He has good friends, he knows how to cook, and he’s even made peace with the school bully. But the problem with being twelve is that new problems keep popping up and confusing him. Soon Bingo is panicking over the love of his life moving to Oklahoma, the school bully asking for relationship advice, and his parents acting weirder than ever....

When Boo brings home a dinosaur that only she can see, her brother Sammy, doesn't want to encourage her antics. Boo and her dinosaur are inseparable until Boo says good-bye to the dino quite suddenly. When Sammy sees how sad his sister is, he understands Boo's need for her dinosaur more than he wants to admit. So much so that he almost believes it ... almost. Betsy Byars has written many chapter books, including Little Horse and Little Horse on...

A teen-age girl gains new insight into herself and her family when her developmentally disabled brother gets lost.

When Birch agreed to one last flight in her grandfather's Piper Cub, neither knew it would be a life-changing trip. Birch's grandfather, "Pop," wants to take his plane out for one more trip before moving into a retirement home. He wants to take Birch along with him, which sounds like a fine plan - until the two decide to turn the short flight into a cross-country adventure without telling Birch's parents. As grandfather and granddaughter soar westward...

Rama the cat has no home. He is the Gypsy Cat, and a life full of travel and adventure awaits him. When a gypsy woman found Rama as a kitten, she pierced his ear with a golden earring and named him after an exiled prince who wandered for years, having many adventures. Rama the cat lives up to his namesake when he strays from the wagon that was his home, and begins his own thrilling journey, discovering dangers on the wharf, in the forest, and by the...

Bingo’s ultimate guide to finding love might need a few more chapters when his long-distance girlfriend returns home
Bingo Brown is confident that he can write the definitive guidebook for middle-school boys trying to win over girls. With his baby brother, Jamie, in mind, he jots down notes about the lessons he’s learned: Should you worry if the girl you like grows taller than you? (No.) What do you do when hauling your family’s...

When Junior brings home the classroom hamster, Scooty, he decides to build the best hamster tunnel ever. But when Scooty goes missing, all evidence points to Mud. Meanwhile, Mad Mary is missing, too-although her bag and walking stick were found near the highway. When Mary later wakes up in the hospital, she realizes that the Blossoms might just have provided her with the strength she needs to pull her life back together. It's anything but an ordinary...

Somehow Jimmie Little must overcome his belief that terrible things are always about to happen. Jimmie Little was always the sensible one in the family. The rest of his aunts, uncles, and cousins were always getting into ridiculous scrapes because of their bold, show-off attitudes. But when he loses his father to a mining accident and his Uncle Pete to a frozen river, everything changed. Jimmie is certain that everything he or anyone else in his family...