Worried that he has no money for a Christmas present for his mother and unsuccessful at attempts to earn any, Timothy comes up with an ingenious solution to the problem.
Twelve-year-old Julius has his hands full over the summer when his mother attempts to improve his grades and teach him responsibility by signing him up for a French class and getting him a job babysitting.
When Edward's mom is trying to sleep during the night, Edward, who cannot sleep, asks her "why" questions all night long until he finally falls asleep when the sun comes up.
Franklin Delano Donuthead, a fifth-grader obsessed with hygiene and safety, finds an unlikely friend and protector in Sarah Kervick, the tough new student who lives in a dirty trailer, bonds with his mother, and is as "irregular" as he is.
Billy has spent his almost-sixteen years with four cardinal points--Mother, Christ, Bible, and Home-school--but when he sets off on a wild road trip to find the father he thought was dead, he learns much about himself and life.
Still reeling from his drug-dealing father's murder, moving in with the wealthy mother he never knew, and transferring to a private school, fifteen-year-old Jude is tricked into pleading guilty to a crime he did not commit.
Albert is an epileptic who lives a cloistered life with his mother in nineteenth-century England, and while she deludes herself searching for a miracle cure, Albert eventually begins to accept his condition and to become self-reliant.
When Ari and his mother leave their home in Germany for a new life and family in Australia, he parts from the grandfather who taught him to play violin, but finds that his music and memories are intertwined.
