E. L Konigsburg

Four students, with their own individual stories, develop a special bond and attract the attention of their teacher, a paraplegic, who choses them to represent their sixth-grade class in the Academic Bowl competition.

Upon leaving an oppressive summer camp, twelve-year-old Margaret Rose Kane spearheads a campaign to preserve three unique towers her grand uncles have been building in their back yard for over forty years.

Mark Setzer tells about his troubles in general and in particular his misfortunes on the Little League team managed by his mother and coached by his brother.

Poor Little Rich Boy Winston Carmichael has it all: a big house, servants, vacations in Palm Beach, and a fancy private school. But with overprotective parents and a sense of responsibility for his younger sister, Heidi, Winston sometimes feels more as if he's living in a prison than a dream. Then one day a woman appears at the front door claiming to be Caroline -- Winston's half-sister, who was kidnapped and presumed dead long before he and Heidi...

When he is wrongly accused of gravely injuring his baby half-sister, thirteen-year-old Branwell loses his power of speech and only his friend Connor is able to reach him and uncover the truth about what really happened.

Relates, from the point of view of his servant Salai, how Leonardo da Vinci came to paint the Mona Lisa.