For Ages
10 to 99

A terrific novel about middle school friendship, family, fitting in, and finding out who you are when no one's looking. 

Lane Cisco loves, loves, loves her life at Rio Chama Middle School—until her offbeat cousin comes for an extended visit and turns everything upside down. With her individual sense of style and nonconformist attitude, Angelina "Mint" Taraval is everything Lane isn't. And instead of branding her a loser the way Lane and her friends expect, people actually want…

An Excerpt fromToo Cool for This School

1
The eighth graders got to choose us. That was how the system worked. Leslie Fuentes and Robin Galindo stood before us in all their eighth-grade glory looking super fashionable and super powerful and super serious. And I understood why. Who they chose mattered. Because Leslie and Robin would be stuck with their picks for the entire school year.
"You know your speech is going to be recorded?" Robin asked, holding up a small camera in one hand and a tripod in the other.
I did not know this.
"Do you guys mind waiting here while we set up the equipment?" Leslie asked.
I knew the correct answer to that question, so I said, "I don't mind."
It caught me off guard when somebody had a better answer. A cute seventh-grade boy stood up. "Do you need any help?" He was the only boy here.
"We've got it, Derek," Leslie said, slinging a stylish canvas bag over her shoulder. I noticed that her bag's lavender stripes matched the lavender pattern on her sandal straps. She must have bought them together. Or maybe…