Although she misses her stuffed bear after he is left behind on the bus, a young girl enjoys the post cards he sends her from all the faraway places he visits.
When fashionista Sicilee, arty Maya, and antisocial Waneeda risk their reputations by joining Clifton Springs High School's Environmental Club to be near gorgeous new student Cody Lightfoot, each finds a new way of looking at the world.
Upon learning at the end of her senior year of high school that a Hollywood film is being made in her hometown, Lola stops at nothing to get a part and upstage her nemesis, Carla Santini.
Nine-year-old Adam's obnoxious older brother Keith claims to be an alien from another galaxy and asks for Adam's help because a spaceship is coming to take him back to his home planet.
Sixteen-year-old Janet Bandry keeps a diary as she deals with an annoying family, school, a quirky best friend, and trying to find herself through vegetarianism, literature, romance, and her "Dark Phase.".
During her first year in high school, Jenny finds out what true friends are when her best friend deserts her for the sake of belonging to a clique of pretty and popular girls.
Janet records her trials and tribulations in her diary, including how she finds a summer job, the changes in her mother and best friend as they fall in love, and how she approaches her own seventeenth birthday.
Ella has no interest in running for class president at her suburban New Jersey high school, but her off-beat friend Lola tricks her into challenging the rich and overbearing Carla Santini in a less-than-friendly race.
Mike and her best friend Hope breathlessly await meeting the guys of their dreams and falling in love, but after Mike thinks that she has found the perfect boy there seems to be some question of whether he is her destiny.
