Twelve-year-old Davey is the man of the household, taking care of his mother and older sister as best he can and avoiding them when they're either too mean or too sad.
Fourteen-year-old Tree, resentful of her working mother who leaves her in charge of a retarded brother, encounters the ghost of her dead uncle and comes to a deeper understanding of her family's problems.
Many things change for twelve-year-old Rabble Starkey, her mother, and her best friend, Veronica Bigelow when Veronica's mother becomes mentally incapacitated and the Starkeys move in with the Bigelows.
After the death of her mother, Julie leaves her grandmother's home to join her father in a new town where she must adjust to new friends and tries to save a tree threatened by a new parking lot.
In 1947, his head filled with the advice and wisdom of his runaway father, thirteen-year-old Freddy moves his mother from their Georgia farm into town and takes on the challenge of holding his family together.
While speculating on the merits of her father's new girlfriend, Dez teams up with Sherman, a vegetarian and animal rights activist, to design posters for the school play with humorous results.
A fourteen-year-old's life with her single mother is complicated when an overly affectionate uncle comes to visit and she must deal with her feelings of guilt and enjoyment.
Twelve-year-old Henley dreams of finding with her Aunt Mercy the sense of home and belonging she has missed in her life of wandering with her restless mother Patti.
