For a single-celled organism, Squish the amoeba leads an awfully complicated existence. His two best friends-Pod, a bowtie-wearing amoeba nerd, and Peggy, a pathologically cheerful paramecium-are a constant thorn in his side; he just can’t seem to make it to school in time; and Lynwood the school bully wants to swallow him whole. When yet another bout of tardiness lands the whole group in detention, Squish is faced with a full-blown moral dilemma: in order to save Peggy from becoming Lynwood’s next between-meal snack, he has to let the big bully copy his next science test. Can even our precocious protozoan hero get himself out of this one?

In Caitlin’s world, everything is black or white. Things are good or bad. Anything in between is confusing. That’s the stuff Caitlin’s older brother, Devon, has always explained… but now Devon’s dead and Dad is no help at all. Caitlin wants to get over it, but as an eleven-year-old girl with Asperger’s, she doesn’t know how. When she reads the definition of closure, she realizes that is what she needs. In her search for it, Caitlin discovers that not everything is black and white—the world is full of colors—messy and beautiful.  Kathryn Erskine has written a must-read gem, one of the most moving novels of the year.