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.

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.

Flora and Ruby have mixed feelings about the arrival of the Christmas season in Camden Falls, their first without their parents, but they stay busy with family and friends.

Rose Howard is obsessed with homonyms. She's thrilled that her own name is a homonym, and she purposely gave her dog Rain a name with two homonyms (Reign, Rein) which, according to Rose's rules of homonyms, is very special. Struggling with Asperger's, Rose shares a bond with her beloved dog, but when the dog goes missing during a storm, Rose is forced to confront the limits of her comfort levels, even if it means leaving her routines in order to search...

The Pike family is taking a vacation to the beach, and Stacey and Mary Anne get to go along to help out! Two weeks of sun, sand . . . and the cutest lifeguard Stacey has ever seen! Mary Anne says that Scott the lifeguard is way too old for Stacey, and besides, she shouldn't be ignoring the Pike kids to spend more time with a boy. But Stacey is in love. What could possibly be more important than following her heart?