There are a few stories that I have saved to my hard-drive for regular re-reading, that are also nicely encouraging for me. And they tend to be so captivating that I often become somewhat sleep deprived. Though that usually results in some wonderfully restoring and long sleeps.

• VentureRealm Amusement Park is the story of a little boy enjoying one day in an amusement park, that got destroyed shortly afterwards. And his dream of being a princess at that amusement park was quashed by parental abuse. Through his tenacity he survived and saved up a nice nest egg. Through sheer luck he won a lot of money, and started making his childhood dreams come true. First he bought the ruins of that old amusement park and started to rebuild it from the ground up. At the same time she transitioned and became the Queen of the VentureRealm Amusement Park, a safe haven for hardworking and geeky, as well as transgender, young people. And third, behind the scenes she had a very positive impact on the whole community.
• Sarah Carrera is the story of a young teen that gets discovered as the next teen pop star at a karaoke party. To allow for the possibility of a somewhat “normal” life, they pull a Hannah Montana. Shortly after the release of her first single, Sarah, who thought she was a boy injured in a freak highway accident, discovers that she is indeed a full fledged female. The story, published as a trilogy of “books” covers approximately the first eight or nine months of Sarah's career, including her first concert tour and a special Christmas concert with her school.
• The Tammiverse is an ongoing series of books about the life of an English teen shipped off to a boarding school in the far north of Scotland. Through no fault of his own, she transitions to female at that all-boys boarding school and gets recruited into the British intelligence apparatus and repeatedly made the scapegoat for the failures of her superiors. Though she gets save by a cross-over with the Lissa Kordenay series and to a lesser extend the Marshall series.

As far as I know these stories are still available here on BCTS. While the following stories were initially published here on BCTS, but had to be unpublished because of the Amazon Dictatorship.

• Frills is the story of a teen bullied and nearly killed twice during his first year in high-school. The following year two girls from home economics class decide to befriend him. Through their shared love for cooking and backing they discover themselves to be three girly girls that have a knack of reviving the gentility of yesteryear. At the same time all three are very enterprising, and with the protectorship of the communities “grand dame” they manage to turn around the old business district with their pastries boutique called Frills.
• The PomPom Fortress is the story of a pre-teen from the wrong side of the tracks who gets drafted as a tutor by the cheerleaders of his school, and who take it upon themselves to protect him from the school bullies. As he recovers from some routine bullying, the cheerleaders discover his secret female identity, and start tutoring him in the female arts with the full support of his mother.
• The Station's Late Nite Princess is the story of a sixteen year old aspiring voice actor. His father, the best diesel mechanic for many miles around (and a former little league player), encourages him to follow his own dreams. After getting a janitorial job at a new radio station in town, through a series of lucky circumstances she becomes the star DJ in the late night slot of the radio station. There is a lot of social tension and finally growing up going on around our protagonist.

These are my favorite stories that are at the core of my digital library and that fit the criteria set out by the original poster. Although there are a few more stories on my regular-to-re-read list, but fall outside the real-world-ish criteria.

Melanie was looking for 9-to-14 year olds, The protagonists of many of the stories mentioned above seem to be at least 15; most of the ones I know of there are in high school or a foreign equivalent. Some drive motor vehicles.

Tiffany Shar's Dollar Runaways is probably my favorite in the category. Tony's ten years old and looks younger.

Ricky's Little Orphan (D)Annie is another good one. Danny's 11 when he gets the title role in "Annie".

IMO, Karin Bishop's two best stories of the type, 2011's On The Run and The Network, have been withdrawn. The Network is on Amazon. Danny (Run) and Stevie (Network) are 12. Jimmy Brewer from Powerball (2012), another withdrawn story, is 12 or 13; he's the youngest person in his eighth-grade class. One Word and One Year is still here onsite; Mark is 13.

Eric

I went over to Amazon Kindle, found it and bought it. It was too convoluted for this very aged brain. I may have read the original but can't remember it. Was it in separate chapters? That would have been better for me.

Sorry
Gwen

I have a few stories that fit age-wise but since I write stories that are non-mainstream for the non-mainstream Big Closet site the rest doesn't really tick the boxes.
Wait, did I just use a double negative? And does that mean that I write mainstream stories, if considered outside of this site?

By the way

I'M BACK!!!