Supremely confident middle school student Nate Wright manages to make getting detention from every one of his teachers in the same day seem like an achievement.

"In Kenny Wright's active imagination he's a world famous superhero, but in the real world he's a sixth grade "Grandma's Boy" whose struggles to fit in at his Washington D.C. inner city school will put his grades and family loyalty to the test"--

Middle-school drama queen Nikki Maxwell worries about asking a boy to her school's "sweetheart dance."

"Luke Abbott's school is the losing-est school in the history of losing. And that's just fine for him. He'd rather be at home playing video games and avoiding his older brother Rob and the Greatest Betrayal of All Time. But now he's being forced to join the robotics team, where surely he'll help uphold the school's losing streak"--

Twelve-year-old Tabitha believes in signs and predictions, and, inspired by her best friend Kara, she is looking for the signs that will point her to the right boyfriend--and predict a successful conclusion to her quest.

Chase does not remember falling off the roof, in fact he does not remember anything about himself, and when he gets back to middle school he begins to learn who he was through the reactions of the other kids--trouble is, he really is not sure he likes the Chase that is being revealed, but can he take the opportunity amnesia has provided and restart his life?

Nervous about middle school because her family does not get her and her friends know exactly what they want to do, Abbie Wu searches for her own passion before discovering a knack for leadership when injustices in the cafeteria come to light.

Twelve-year-old María Luisa O'Neill-Morales (who really prefers to be called Malú) reluctantly moves with her Mexican-American mother to Chicago and starts seventh grade with a bang--violating the dress code with her punk rock aesthetic and spurning the middle school's most popular girl in favor of starting a band with a group of like-minded weirdos.

In order to get the attention of Nia, the girl he likes, eleven-year-old A.J. pretends to be a vampire, unaware that she intends to be a slayer.

Greg Heffley tells about his summer vacation and his attempts to steer clear of trouble when he returns to middle school and tries to keep his older brother Rodrick from telling everyone about Greg's most humiliating experience of the summer.