Family routine is upset during Ramona's year in second grade when her father unexpectedly loses his job.

When his parents go to Africa to work as missionaries, twelve-year-old Henry's eccentric aunts, Pigg and Mag, take him on a cross-country car trip, allowing him to gain insight into his family and himself.

When both her parents are unable to find work and pay the bills during the Great Depression, resourceful Sarah Ann Puckett saves the family from the poorhouse by selling her prizewinning homemade bread.

Zach, Alice, and Poppy, friends from a Pennsylvania middle school who have long enjoyed acting out imaginary adventures with dolls and action figures, embark on a real-life quest to Ohio to bury a doll made from the ashes of a dead girl.

Best friends Gabe and Oliver tackle family problems, bullying, and the challenge of dealing with the new kid in their sixth grade class, Reuben, who refuses to talk--and no one knows why.

When things go bad at home, sisters Eleanor and Mike hide in a secret place under Eleanor's bed, telling monster stories. Often, it seems those stories and their mother's house magic are all that keep them safe from both busybodies and their dad's temper. But when their father breaks a family heirloom, a glass witch ball, a river suddenly appears beneath the bed, and Eleanor and Mike fall into a world where dreams are born, nightmares struggle to...

While spending the month of August on the Massachusetts shore with her father, stepmother, and their new baby, almost thirteen-year-old Maggie finds beauty in and draws strength from a great blue heron, even as the family around her unravels.

Twelve-year-old Della Kelly of Maryville, North Carolina, tries to come to terms with her mother's mental illness while her father struggles to save the farm from a record-breaking drought.

Twelve-year-old Addie tries to cope with her mother's erratic behavior and being separated from her beloved stepfather and half-sisters when she and her mother go to live in a small trailer by the railroad tracks on the outskirts of Schenectady, New York.

When Nikki's father left her family, she thought all of the screaming and fighting at home would be over, but when he returns, she calls on the support of her mother and friends to pull her through the difficult time.