Ally has been smart enough to fool a lot of people. Every time she lands in a new school, she is able to hide her inability to read by creating disruptive distractions. She is afraid to ask for help; after all, how can you cure dumb? However, her newest teacher Mr. Daniels sees the bright kid underneath the trouble maker. She discovers that there’s a lot more to her—and to everyone—than a label, and that great minds don’t always think alike. Back cover of book.

Melody is not like most people. She can’t walk, talk or write. But she also has a photographic memory; she can remember every detail of everything she has ever experienced. She’s the smartest kid in her whole school, but NO ONE knows it. Most people—her teachers, her doctors, her classmates—dismiss her as mentally challenged. But Melody refuses to be defined by her disability. And she’s determined to let everyone know it…somehow. Credits to Simon and Schuster

Carley Connors is thrust into foster care and left on the steps of the Murphys, a happy, bustling family.

She isn’t rattled easily, but this is a world she just doesn’t understand. A world that frightens her. So, she resists this side of life she’d believed did not exist with dinners around a table and a “zip your jacket, here’s your lunch” kind of mom. However, with the help of her Broadway-obsessed and unpredictable friend, Toni, the Murphys do the impossible in showing Carley what it feels like to belong somewhere. But, when her mother wants her back, will she lose the only family that she has ever known? Credits to the author.