The summer that Hattie turns twelve, she meets the childlike uncle she never knew and becomes friends with a girl who works at the carnival that comes to Hattie's small town. Twelve-year-old Hattie learns that living life fully means facing both the good times and the bad upon the closing of her Uncle Adam's "school"- an institution for the mentally disabled.

"Stoneybrook has gone star-crazy! Derek Masters, an eight-year-old regular on a hit television sitcom, has moved to town. Everyone's wondering what a real-live TV star will be like--will he drive to school in a limo? Jessi can't believe it, but even stars need baby-sitters, and she's the lucky club member to watch Derek Masters. Even though a lot of kids at school call Derek a spoiled brat, Jessi likes him immediately. He rides bikes and eats junk...

During the summer before their seventh-grade year, Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia, and Stacey tackle difficulties, including family problems, crushes, moving, and making new friends.

Even though Missy Piggle-Wiggle is preoccupied with repairing her Upside-Down House that was damaged in a storm, she always finds time to administer her magical cures that rid children in Little Spring Valley of their unwanted habits and misbehavior.

Kristy is not too happy with some things at Stoneybrook Middle School, so she decides to run for class president. But can Kristy coach a softball team, get straight A's, baby-sit, run the BSC, and be president?

"Georgia cannot figure out what's going on in her family. Her mother, Francie, is extremely overprotective. Her grandmother, Dana, and her great-grandmother, Abby, don't speak to each other. And Georgia's great-great-grandmother also had some secrets that nobody else knows about. Georgia knows this because she's found her great-great grandmother's diary hidden in a wall in the family's house in Maine. Reading the diary makes her think of her own...