The relationship between two teenage girls who become acquainted through letters intensifies as their correspondence reveals some of the terrible problems of their lives.
Skip, forgotten by the foster care system, is forced to live on the streets with an older homeless man, Billy. When war breaks out and their city comes under attack, however, it isn't long before they end up caring for an abandoned child and a desperate teenage mother as they attempt to survive in a city beset by deadly gangs and lawless soldiers.
Three female students from Ashbury High write to three male students from rival Brookfield High as part of a pen pal program, leading to romance, humiliation, revenge plots, and war between the schools.
In Richmond, Australia, in 1919, fifteen-year-old Charlie Feehan becomes an errand boy for a notorious mobster, hoping that his ability to run will help him, his widowed mother, and his baby brother to escape poverty.
Jonah and his little brother Shawn bring their mountain bikes for a visit to Grandpa's house, despite Grandpa's claims that Crooked Hills is cursed, but when Shawn is missing after a dangerous storm, Jonah must put aside his fears to save his little brother.
Rose, nearly sixteen, is used to traveling around with her alcoholic father but connects with the people of a small, coastal Australian town, especially classmate Pearl and reclusive Edie, who teaches her to sew a magical dress for the Harvest Festival while a mystery unfolds around them.
The Brain, who considers himself the world's greatest detective, enlists reluctant helper Sheldon McGlone to investigate recent strange events. The answers involve surfing rivals, a weird homeroom teacher, a toothpaste company, and a severed human leg.
Twelve-year-old Olive, an only child who lives with her high-powered lawyer-mother in a ramshackle house at the beach in Australia, does not fit in at the Joanne d'Arc School for Girls, so when her best friend drops her for a more popular girl and Olive suddenly meets her own, more confident twin sister, the two of them go in search of their long-lost father.
Jackson and his mother are hiding out from the mob after his mom witnessed a crime in the casino where she worked as a singer. Things seem to be going well until Jackson's girlfriend, Esmerelda, disappears. Jackson knows the mob is involved and it's up to him to rescue Esmerelda.
Sixteen-year-old Undine, hearing her presumably deceased father calling to her and feeling a strange force growing inside her, travels to the sea to discover the depths of her magical powers.
