Having endured the vicious rumors spread by her professional-skateboarder ex-boyfriend, high school sophomore Kelsey Wilcox tries to salvage her reputation while attempting to earn a place on her high school newspaper.
Overshadowed at home by her over-achieving siblings, sixteen-year-old Elena Holloway spends a semester in Spain, where she explores her talents in a theater class and tries to attract the attention of a handsome boy.
When thirteen-year-old Carmie discovers that her divorced mother, who suffers from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, was once a well-know Malibu surfer, she re-evaluates the way she views her mother and herself.
Always overshadowed by his competitive older brother, especially in their work as mule drivers on the Erie Canal, fourteen-year-old Howard finally finds the courage to pursue his dreams of becoming an educator after he learns about sign language and teaches it to his deaf friend in nineteenth-century New York State.
When ten-year-old River, who is crazy about basketball, is not chosen to play in the tournament set up in the town of Azalea, Oregon, she decides to organize a team of her own and accepts the help of her older brother.
Twelve-year-old Donovan's summer with his aunt and uncle on Puget Sound becomes a test of his own convictions when he suspects his uncle's involvement in a local racist group.
Shy sixteen-year-old Elaine has long dreamed of being the next Julia Child, to the dismay of her feminist mother, but when her first friend, the outrageous Lucida Sans, convinces Elaine to enter a cooking contest, anything could happen.
Hollywood princess Kaitlin Burke faces the last season of her television program "Family Affair," and even bigger questions about the future of her career, but when she is overwhelmed by the good intentions of those around her, Kaitlin experiments with fun in nightclubs and at parties.
With her father gone and her family dealing with financial problems, El transfers to a new school, where she falls for one of the popular boys and then must decide whether to remain true to herself or become like the girls she scorns.
