With all the endless, creative fun a child can have with a rock, the best thing one can do with one is to share it with a friend. Includes facts about rocks and rock collecting.

Stuck in Group A with the kids who can't read, upbeat first grader Lupe Lopez is made fun of by a rival but refuses to let that stop her from becoming a reading rock star.

When Tanisha spills grape juice all over her new dress, her classmate contemplates how to make her feel better and what it means to be kind. From asking the new girl to play to standing up for someone being bullied, this moving and thoughtful story explores what a child can do to be kind, and how each act, big or small, can make a difference or at least help a friend.

When Lupe Lopez struts through the doors of Hector P. Garcia Elementary in sunglasses with two taped-up Number 2 pencils--drumsticks, of course--poking from her pocket, her confidence is off the charts. All day, Lupe drums on desks, tables, and chairs while Ms. Quintanilla reminds her of school rules. Lupe has her own rules: 1) Don't listen to anyone. 2) Make lots of noise. Rataplan! 3) Have fans, not friends. But with her new teacher less than starstruck,...

On her very first day of school, Sophie is reluctant to make friends with the other children, preferring to play with two squash she grew in her garden -- but when a particularly persistent boy named Steven gives her a packet of seeds as an apology for accidentally ripping her picture, she realizes that it just takes time to grow a friend.