Frances O’Roark Dowell Books in Order

Accused of killing a young man she openly disliked, twelve-year-old Dovey Coe sets out to tell what really happened. Her account reveals a mountain family's tensions and her fierce loyalty to the brother others underestimate because he is deaf.

After years in foster homes, Maddie longs for somewhere she belongs. At a children's home in Tennessee, a new girl's extraordinary stories and unexpected friendship offer a possibility of connection that challenges how Maddie sees herself.

Kate and Marylin have been inseparable for years, but sixth grade brings shifting ideas about popularity, romance and growing up. As each becomes frustrated with the other's changes, they struggle to understand whether their friendship can survive.

Seventh grader Tobin McCauley struggles with family chaos, school trouble and a grandmother whose behavior draws unwanted attention. An unlikely friendship with a boy fascinated by chickens gives him a new way to face the complications around him.

Aspiring fourth-grade scientist Phineas is dismayed when his teacher assigns an unwanted partner for the science fair. Their disagreements over the project prompt an investigation into friendship, alongside experiments involving volcanoes, mold and marshmallows.

Determined to become the best scientist in fourth grade, Phineas takes on an ambitious experiment when Aretha asks for help earning a Girl Scout badge. Together they attempt to cultivate the mold that produces penicillin.

Phineas sets his scientific ambitions on outer space, only to discover that attending space camp will require money his mother expects him to earn. His pursuit of the trip becomes another experiment in ingenuity and determination.

Jamie eagerly awaits news when her older brother goes to Vietnam, imagining military adventure like their father's. Instead, his photographs expose a different reality of war, forcing her to reconsider her admiration for the Army and the Colonel.

In seventh grade, aspiring musician Kate and popularity-conscious cheerleader Marylin want to repair their friendship. Their increasingly different interests and social pressures make finding common ground much harder than either girl expected.

Distracted at school by a mysterious buzzing, Isabelle tumbles into a strange world resembling a fairy tale. Her pointed boots convince its inhabitants that she is a dangerous witch, complicating an adventure she never expected to enter.

Janie wants an ordinary high-school life, but living on her parents' goat farm makes blending in difficult. Music, unexpected friendships and a boy named Monster gradually challenge her idea of what a normal life should look like.

After rejecting the girls who mock her weight, Abigail finds an unlikely friend across a nearby stream. Helping him research a poem for his troubled veteran father opens new possibilities for connection, courage and hope.

Marylin and Kate face conflicting loyalties as romance and school politics complicate their friendship. Competing requests for student-government funding push them onto opposing sides and force each to consider whose wishes she is really pursuing.

In 1920s North Carolina, Arie Mae longs for a close friend and writes unanswered letters to a distant cousin. Visiting city children bring a promising companion, but their shared adventures test the limits of his fragile health.

Given responsibility for making dinner, Phineas discovers that recipes are less precise than his science experiments. He must improve quickly to enter a baking contest with his friends and satisfy a bully's growing demand for brownies.

Emma moves to a small mountain town and struggles to make friends until local quilters welcome her. Organizing a centennial quilt show brings new connections, but resentment over an outsider's involvement threatens her growing sense of belonging.

Seven-year-old Sam wants a paying job, but opportunities are scarce until a neighbor needs someone to mind her chickens. The work helps him coax an elderly man outdoors and inspires an ambitious plan involving blue eggs.

In segregated Kentucky, Callie and Wendell investigate a wandering dog's origins despite local hostility to their friendship. Their search draws them toward a woodland cabin where two ghostly boys are struggling to understand why they cannot move on.

Five stories follow women whose quilting connects them through grief, family conflict, friendship and unexpected change. Their projects become occasions for facing illness, revisiting assumptions and finding ways to offer care when ordinary words seem insufficient.

Sam is assigned an unwanted rutabaga for a school science project and unexpectedly becomes attached to it. Determined to stop it rotting, he devises a plan that calls for better soil, help from nature and his chickens.

Sam hopes his family's replacement vehicle can be a monster truck. When that idea fails to persuade his mother, he proposes transforming their minivan with a painted dragon, but first must win everyone over and learn how.

After solving the mystery of a missing sock, Sam forms a detective club with his friends. With no cases arriving, they investigate the school's lost property, where a locked box, stuffed snake and suspiciously smelly jacket await.

Sam wants a cell phone so useful information will always be within reach, but his parents refuse. Determined to keep researching, he tries an old-fashioned notebook and discovers that his practical solution might catch on with others.

Twenty sixth graders offer different views of their classroom as friendships shift and unexpected mysteries unfold. A watchful newcomer, missing possessions and a former classmate's unexplained visits reveal how much the children still have to learn about one another.

This guide helps young writers turn ideas and unfinished drafts into complete stories. Using sample writing, illustrations and manageable steps, Dowell explains basic story construction and offers ways to work through the obstacles that interrupt a project.

Suspended from football after an angry outburst, Hazard begins therapy while his soldier father recovers from injuries sustained in Afghanistan. Through their messages and experiences, he confronts the harm both have caused and the difficult work of forgiveness.

Five Christmas stories follow the women of the Wednesday Bee before the events of Friendship Album, 1933. Between quilting deadlines, family disagreements and seasonal preparations, their friendships help them navigate the holidays in Milton Falls, Ohio.