Wendelin Van Draanen

While investigating why someone is trying to force people from their homes to expand a recreation center, Sammy is distracted by the lies she must tell to cover an accident she caused, but which was blamed on her nemesis, Heather.

When her behavior escalates out of control, fourteen-year-old Wren is taken away to a wilderness therapy camp where she is forced to develop new skills, including the courage to ask for help.

Lincoln Jones is always working on the latest story he's got going in his notebook. Those stories are his refuge. A place where the hero always prevails and the bad guy goes to jail. Real life is messy and complicated, so Lincoln sticks to fiction and keeps to himself. Which works fine until a nosy girl at his new school starts prying into his private business. She wants to know what he's writing, where he disappears to after school, and why he never...

Sometimes it's hard to tell the saints from the sinners...
Sammy was supposed to be in church to get out of trouble, not into more. But while she's at St. Mary's working off some school detention time, a valuable cross goes missing and Sammy becomes the prime suspect. 
She knows she's innocent, and also what it feels like to lose something important. Her treasured catcher's mitt has been stolen—heartless Heather...

"The most winning junior detective ever in teen lit. (Take that, Nancy Drew!)" —Midwest Children's Book Review
When Sammy and her friends meet Lucinda Huntley walking her 200-pound pig down the middle of the road, their quiet weekend in the country quickly becomes an adventure. Lucinda tells them a true tale of the Wild West, her great-grandma Moustache Mary, and a century-old family feud.
But this feud is hardly...

"The most winning junior detective ever in teen lit. (Take that, Nancy Drew!)" —Midwest Children's Book Review

Sammy's softball team is in contention for the Junior Slugger's Cup, and all she wants to do is hunker down behind the home plate and catch strikes. But Heather Acosta brings new meaning to the term "foul ball" as she schemes to get Sammy kicked off the team.
Then Sammy is thrown a wild pitch...

“The hottest sleuth to appear in children’s books since Nancy Drew” (The Boston Globe) is back! Don’t miss the fourth book in the series that’s been described as “a combination of Carl Hiaasen’s Flush and Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books” (School Library Journal) and hailed as “nonstop whodunits” (Kirkus Reviews)!
 
The...

This Halloween is more than just tricks and treats—it's deadly serious.
 
It was supposed to be a simple ding-dong ditch. A dare to give them bragging rights. But as Sammy and her friends sneak up to the spookiest house in town, they get scared witless by a skeleton, and then witness something frightening enough to make even Sammy scream. 
Things have taken a scary turn at school, too, with horrible Heather spreading...

Fifth-grader Nolan Byrd, tired of being called names by the class bully, has a secret identity--Shredderman!

"The most winning junior detective ever in teen lit. (Take that, Nancy Drew!)" —Midwest Children's Book Review
What Sammy should have done was put the binoculars down and call 911. What she does instead is tighten up the focus on her right eye to get a better look. There's something very familiar about this thief.
But when Sammy eventually spills her story to Officer Borsch, he doesn't believe her. He treats...