Hoping that if she wins a local beauty pageant her father will come home, Raymie practices twirling a baton and performing good deeds as she is drawn into an unlikely friendship with a drama queen and a saboteur.

Seventeen-year-old Bianca Piper starts sleeping with Wesley Rush, a notorious womanizer who disgusts her,in order to distract her from her personal problems, and to her surprise, the two of them find they have a lot in common and are able to help each other find more productive ways to deal with their difficulties.

When eleven-year-old Hank's mother does not come home after a week, he and his toddler sister, Boo, seek out the stranger listed as their emergency contact, even though it means social workers, a new school, and having to answer questions about his mom that he has been trying to keep secret.

Fifteen-year-old Macy, officially labeled "disturbed" by her school, records her impressions of her rough neighborhood and home life as she tries to rescue her brother from Child Protective Services, win back her overachieving best friend after a fight, and figure out whether to tell her incarcerated father about her mother's cheating.

Sixteen-year-old Valerie, whose boyfriend Nick committed a school shooting at the end of their junior year, struggles to cope with integrating herself back into high school life, unsure herself whether she was a hero or a villain.

After chess led to the destruction of her family four years earlier, Mallory Greenleaf's focus is a dead-end job that keeps the lights on for her mother and sisters. When she plays in a charity tournament and wipes the board with current world champion Nolan Sawyer, the victory opens the door to sorely needed cash prizes. Mallory struggles to keep her family separated from the game, but she soon realizes that the games aren't only on the board. The...

Amber is excited to be spending the summer after fourth grade with her friends at Camp Cushetunk, but things start getting complicated when she learns that her worst enemy, Hannah Burton, is one of her bunkmates.

Alex Blackwood is really good at getting the girl she wants, but coming from a broken home with an alcoholic mother she finds committment difficult, even when she thinks she is in love; impossibly awkward Molly Parker has a crush on the cool Cora Myers, but she does not know how to even start a conversation, much less make a connection; now they are all at college in Pittsburgh Alex decides to "help" Molly get the girl, while proving to her own flame...

When his volatile father is picked to become an astronaut for NASA's mission to Mars, seventeen-year-old Cal, an aspiring journalist, reluctantly moves from Brooklyn to Houston, Texas, and looks for a story to report, finding an ally (and crush) in Leon, the son of another astronaut. Cal Lewis's volatile father has been picked to become an astronaut for NASA's mission to Mars. This means leaving Brooklyn-- and Cal's career plans as an aspiring journalist--...

Fourteen-year-old Kevin is very good at lying and doing so makes life easier, but when he finds himself in big trouble with his friends, family, and teachers, he must find a way to end his lies forever.