A twelve-year-old boy, worried that his parents may divorce, discovers that an island in the middle of the lake where he is spending the summer is the testing grounds of the mysterious Dr. Libris, who may have invented a way to make the characters in books come alive.

Benny's parents are getting divorced, his mom left and his father has become a hoarder, to make matters worse his hometown has been entered into a contest, and now the pressure is on to get the house cleaned up.

Lonely after a midsummer move to a new town, sixteen-year-old high-school quarterback Marcus Jordan becomes friends with a retired professional linebacker who is great at training him, but whose childish behavior keeps Marcus in hot water.

Twelve-year-old Mitch and his mother are spending the summer with his grandparents at Bird Lake after his parents separate, and ten-year-old Spencer and his family have returned to the lake where Spencer's little brother drowned long ago, and as the boys become friends and spend time together, each of them begins to heal.

When Auden impulsively goes to stay with her father, stepmother, and new baby sister the summer before she starts college, all the trauma of her parents' divorce is revived, even as she is making new friends and having new experiences such as learning to ride a bike and dating.

A child describes how she lives sometimes with her mother and sometimes with her father, but her dog is her constant companion.

In the remote mountains of Arizona where he lives with his mother, stepfather, and two sisters, fourteen-year-old Chase discovers two kidnapped boys and gets caught up in a dangerous adventure when he comes up with a plan to get them to safety.

When her parents decide to get a divorce, Stacey must choose between staying in New York with her father or moving back to Stoneybrook with her mother.

"It's 1974, and Julie Albright has just moved to a new neighborhood and started at a new school. So when she finds out the basketball team is 'boys only, ' Julie is determined to fight for her right to play. Will a petition with 150 names be enough to make the coach change his mind and give her a chance?"--

When her parents divorce, a sixth grader struggles to understand that sometimes people are unable to live together.