Jerry Spinelli

Seventh-grader John "Crash" Coogan has always been comfortable with his tough, aggressive behavior, until his relationship with an unusual Quaker boy and his grandfather's stroke make him consider the meaning of friendship and the importance of family.

Captures the hardships and cruelty of life in the ghettos of Warsaw during the Nazi occupation of World War II, through the eyes of a Jewish orphan who must use all his wits and courage to survive unimaginable events and circumstances.

When the school assigns each eighth-grader the name of a teenager who died in the past year as a lesson in mortality, Worm Tarnauer, who thrives on being invisible, doesn't count on Becca Finch, the seventeen-year-old car crash victim who changes everything.