Teenage Holland and her younger sister Geneva, having always lived under the shadow of siblings who died before they were born, struggle to establish separate identities and escape from the oppressive weight of their parents' continuing grief.
A new boy named Matthew joins Mrs. Tuttle's class, which already has twenty-five students whose first names are Matthew and whose last names begin with every letter except Z.
Annika, a twelve-year-old foundling in late nineteenth-century Vienna, inherits a trunk of costume jewelry, and soon afterwards a woman claiming to be her aristocratic mother arrives and takes her to live in a strangely decrepit mansion in Germany.
Falsely accused of theft and murder, an orphaned peasant boy in fourteenth-century England flees his village and meets a larger-than-life juggler who holds a dangerous secret.
Although a classmate says that she cannot play Peter Pan in the school play because she is African-American, Grace discovers that she can do anything she sets her mind to do.
Edwina the friendly neighborhood dinosaur, friend to children and grown-ups alike, finds a foe in young Reginald Von Hoobie-Doobie, who insists that she is extinct.
When Woodrow's mother suddenly disappears, he moves to his grandparents' home in a small Virginia town where he befriends his cousin and together they find the strength to face the terrible losses and fears in their lives.
After Casey Happleton tells him that if he kisses his elbow he will turn into a girl, nine-year-old Marvin experiments and finds himself very confused about his identity.
