Joan Bauer

Hope Was Here (r/i)

Sixth-grader Sugar and her mother lose their beloved house and experience the harsh world of homelessness.

Almost home

In an upstate New York farming community, high school reporter Hildy Biddle investigates a series of strange occurrences at a house rumored to be haunted.

Peeled

Jenna has a holiday job in a shoe shop and finds that she can sell anybody anything. Unfortunately her personal problems are not so easy to sort out. When the company president, Madeline Gladstone, asks Jenna to drive her across the USA to a vital meeting, Jenna jumps at the chance to get away from her family and hit the road. Together the wise old woman and the sensible young woman teach eather other a lot about the rules of the road - and the rules of life.

Rules of the Road

Feeling scared and powerless when her father's anger escalates and her parents separate, twelve-year-old Anna spends the summer with her grandmother and decides to make a difference when she sees what seems to be a girl held against her will.

Tell Me

Twelve-year-old Foster McFee and her mother escape from her mother's abusive boyfriend and end up in the small town of Culpepper, West Virginia, where they use their strengths and challenge themselves to build a new life, with the help of the friends they make there.

Close to famous

While compiling a genealogy of her family of successful attorneys, sixteen-year-old history buff Ivy Breedlove treks into the mountain wilderness to interview a reclusive aunt with whom she identifies.

Backwater

A cupid doll comes to life and offers romantic assistance to A.J., a teenage photographer suffering from unrequited love.

Thwonk

In her heartfelt and humorous novel, Bauer (Hope Was Here) leaves teenage girl protagonists in favor of a middle-grade boy as she did also in Sticks (1996). But her fans won't be disappointed. At first, 12-year-old Tree, "six feet, three and a half inches and growing," only literally "stands tall." At school, Coach Glummer expects him to lead the basketball team (though he's not very athletic) and teachers expect him to act older than his age. On the home front which shifts weekly due to his parents' recent divorce and joint custody arrangement Tree is the glue of his family. He helps care for his Vietnam vet grandfather (who recently had a leg amputated) while worrying about his aging dog, Bradley, his two college-student brothers and his parents. Bolstered by his budding friendship with the outspoken new girl at school, Sophie, and by Grandpa, Tree finds an inner strength that helps him deal with just about anything including a natural disaster. Bauer once again creates a clan of believable characters scrambling to make the best of their particular brand of dysfunction. Her swiftly paced story artfully blends poignant and outright funny moments, resulting in a triumphant tale that will resonate with many young readers. Ages 10-up.

Stand Tall

Between school and Al-Anon meetings, Jenna Boller helps Mrs. Gladstone cope with escalating problems that result from the merger of Gladstone Shoes with Shoe Warehouse Corporation, while managing a new employee with a shoplifting record. Reprint.

Best Foot Forward

Soar

As sixteen-year-old Ellie pursues her two goals--growing the biggest pumpkin in Iowa and losing twenty pounds herself--she strengthens her relationship with her father and meets a young man with interests similar to her own.

Squashed

Newbery Honor–winner Joan Bauer's newest protagonist always sees the positive side of any situation—and readers will cheer him on! Jeremiah is the world’s biggest baseball fan. He really loves baseball and he knows just about everything there is to know about his favorite sport. So when he’s told he can’t play baseball following an operation on his heart, Jeremiah decides he’ll do the next best thing and become a coach. Hillcrest, where Jeremiah and his father Walt have just moved, is a town known for its championship baseball team. But Jeremiah finds the town caught up in a scandal and about ready to give up on baseball. It’s up to Jeremiah and his can-do spirit to get the town – and the team – back in the game. Full of humor, heart, and baseball lore, Soar is Joan Bauer at her best.

While compiling a genealogy of her family of successful attorneys, sixteen-year-old history buff Ivy Breedlove treks into the mountain wilderness to interview a reclusive aunt with whom she identifies and who in turn helps her to truly know herself and her family. Reprint.

CLASSICS Hope was Here

Newly orphaned and living with the half sister she hardly knows, twelve-year-old Olive rediscovers her hope when she starts training a guide dog puppy.

Raising Lumie

The must-read sequel to the beloved Rules of the Road, from award-winning author Joan Bauer. Jenna Boller is dripping with newfound maturity after her life-altering summer on the road. She has a job she loves at Gladstone Shoes, a best friend who makes her laugh, and a dysfunctional family she's learning how to handle. Jenna feels ready for anything—until Tanner Cobb, a guy with a past, a police record, and dangerously good looks, walks into her life. Suddenly Jenna's surrounded by crises, including a shoe empire on the verge of crumbling. Tanner's street smarts seem to be what Jenna needs, but can she trust him enough when the going gets tough?

Sixteen-year-old Ellie Morgan feels like her life would be perfect if she could get her prize-winning pumpkin Max to put on 200 more pounds and if she could lose 20 herself.

Joan Bauer

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