Told in alternating voices, the teacher and students in room 117 find their lives changed over the course of a school year.

Middle-school drama queen Nikki Maxwell worries about asking a boy to her school's "sweetheart dance."

It's Nikki's birthday, and it is up to her whether it is a blast or a bust.

When cell phones are banned at their school, students start communicating through sticky notes left all over the school, triggering a wave of bullying activities in the wake of a new girl's arrival.

"When Pheobe's sister, Okalee, drowns in the river during their annual spring celebration, Phoebe is wracked with guilt to the point that she loses her singing voice"--

Flint Minett has keratoconus, an eye disease, but desperately wants to win a comic book art contest so that he and his new friend McKell Panganiban will be better accepted at middle school.

In 1958 Little Rock, Arkansas, painfully shy twelve-year-old Marlee sees her city and family divided over school integration, but her friendship with Liz, a new student, helps her find her voice and fight against racism.

Mia struggles to be nice to the new girl, Olivia Allen, after she makes pains to be nice and loans her some money only to discover that Olivia spends it to buy the exact same shoes for which Mia has been saving.

Mia Tang's sixth grade year complicated by a hard-to-please teacher, financial setbacks at her parents' motel, and a looming immigration law that threatens to derail her entire life.

Donovan Curtis has never been what anyone would call "gifted" but his genius friend, Noah Youkilis, is actually supergifted, with one of the highest IQs around. After years at the Academy for Scholastic Distinction, all Noah dreams of is the opportunity to fail if he wants to. And he's landed in the perfect place to do it--Donovan's school. Almost immediately, Noah finds himself on the wrong side of cheerleading captain and alpha jock Hash "Hashtag"...