Criss Cross

Over one spring and summer in their small neighborhood, three friends on the edge of their teenage years drift through ordinary days and begin to notice how they are changing. Debbie, restless and wishing something would happen, finds herself drawn to a boy visiting his grandmother from California. Hector starts guitar lessons and falls for a girl in his class. Lenny works up the nerve to ask Debbie out. Their lives cross and miss each other again and again, in ways small and large, as each of them tries to figure out who they are becoming. Lynne Rae Perkins tells the story in a quiet, playful and poetic voice that captures the uncertain, hopeful feeling of growing up. The novel won the Newbery Medal.