When her father loses his job, seven-year-old Ramona Quimby thinks of ways to deal with the many problems that develop.

Twelve-year-old Addie tries to cope with her mother's erratic behavior and being separated from her beloved stepfather and half-sisters when she and her mother go to live in a small trailer by the railroad tracks on the outskirts of Schenectady, New York.

The Torres sisters dream of escape. Escape from their needy and despotic widowed father, and from their San Antonio neighborhood, full of old San Antonio families and all the traditions and expectations that go along with them. In the summer after her senior year of high school, Ana, the oldest sister, falls to her death from her bedroom window. A year later, her three younger sisters, Jessica, Iridian, and Rosa, are still consumed by grief and haunted...

Thirteen-year-old Teddy Youngblood is in a coma fighting for his life after an unspecified football injury at training camp. His family and friends flock to his bedside to support his recovery--and to discuss the events leading up to the tragic accident. Was this an inevitable result of playing a violent sport, or was something more sinister happening on the field that day? Told in an innovative, multimedia format combining dialogue, texts, newspaper...

When their parents fight, sisters Eleanor and Mike hide, whispering stories and hoping house magic will protect them, until the night a river carries them to a place of dreams and nightmares.

Marly had been waiting a long time for this special momwnt. She sat alone in the car and stared at the lonely countryside and the small dilapidated house. It had to be the right place. All outdoors. With miracles. Not crowded and people being cross and mean. Daddy not tired all the time. Mothernot worried. She whispered, "Please let there be miracles."

After surviving sixth grade, Rafe expects seventh grade to be a fun zone because he has been accepted to art school in the big city, but when he discovers it is more competitive than he expected, he sets out to turn his boring life into the inspiration for a work of art.

When his mother leaves to live with another man, nine-year-old Jeremy faces his own pain and loss, his father's depression and sister's distance, the pity of friends and strangers, and his father's remarriage two years later, finding solace in fishing and his artwork.

When his father dies, Bo Gamage warily moves to the Mojave Desert home of his distant and estranged relatives, the Martinkas, and finds that "Mad" lives up to her name, PawPaw despises him, and Aunt Juna hopes he'll help search for the gold mine that started a family feud.

When Angel's self-absorbed mother leaves her and her younger brother with their poor great-grandmother, the eleven-year-old girl worries not only about her mother and brother, her imprisoned father, the frail old woman, but also about a mysterious man who begins sharing with her the wonder of the stars.