Oliver Wyman

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

Twelve-year-old Mitch and his mother are spending the summer with his grandparents at Bird Lake after his parents separate, and ten-year-old Spencer and his family have returned to the lake where Spencer's little brother drowned long ago, and as the boys become friends and spend time together, each of them begins to heal.

Sassy and Waldo are good dogs, who keep their house safe (from squirrels, mostly), and worry about their boy, Stewart, who always comes home from school smelling of anxiety, so the two dogs come up with a plan to help him--they will dress up in a trench coat and attend school, posing as a new student, to find out just what is bothering Stewart.