On the hot Texas army base she calls home, Katie spends the lazy days of her summer waiting: waiting to grow up; waiting for Dickie Mack to fall in love with her; waiting for her breasts to blossom; waiting for the beatings to stop. Since their mother died, Katie and her older sister, Diane, have struggled to understand their increasingly distant, often violent father. While Diane escapes into the arms of her boyfriend, Katie hides in her room or...

When her father leaves for a deployment, to try to make the waiting easier for herself, Amanda decides to make a wishing tree. Includes instructions and information about wishing trees.

"When eleven-year-old Ginny Pierce's father gets deployed to Afghanistan just as her family is moving to a new post in Maryland, she tries to salvage a long and lonely summer by running her own geography camp"--Provided by publisher. On the last day of fifth grade, super-smart eleven-year-old Ginny learns that her father, who is a military ER doctor, is being deployed to Afghanistan, devastating news because they are already moving to another post...

"When her mother is deployed overseas, a young girl is temporarily parted from her beloved dog"--