The four Penderwick sisters are faced with the unimaginable prospect of their widowed father dating, and they hatch a plot to stop him.

Rosalind heads to the beach when summer arrives, and the rest of the Penderwick girls go to a cozy cottage in Maine with Aunt Claire, leaving Skye feeling slightly overwhelmed with her new role as the oldest available Penderwick.

Tripp Broody, who plays guitar only for himself, and Lyla, a cellist whose talent has already made her famous but not happy, form an unlikely friendship when they have to share a practice room at their high school.

Sebastian Cody did something horrible, something no one, not even Sebastian himself can forgive. At the age of four, he accidentally shot and killed his infant sister with his father's gun. Now, ten years later, Sebastian has lived with the guilt and horror for his entire life. With his best friend away for the summer, Sebastian has only a new friend, Aneesa, to distract him from his darkest thoughts. But even this realtionship cannot blunt the pain...

When seventh-grader Josephine's mother is diagnosed with breast cancer, she wants to keep it secret, even from her best friend Makayla, but her twin brother, Chance, has other ideas.

When ten-year-old Jake's widowed mother breaks her leg just before Christmas while her sister and best friend are both away, a grandfather Jake barely remembers must come to Baltimore, Maryland, to help a neighbor take care of him.

Hensley's, a neighborhood general store, always seems to have what Molly, Kate, and their mother need.

Although Aunt Arlene tries to interest her in clothing and growing up, ten-year-old Mildred is entirely focused on growing a pumpkin big enough to win the annual Circleville, Ohio, contest, as her mother dreamed of doing before she died.

Shelby Cooper, nearly eighteen, has been overprotected by her single mother all her life but after a car accident, Shelby's mother steals her away from the hospital, revealing that Shelby's father is not dead, but rather a violent man who promised to hunt them down.