The family routine is upset during Ramona's year in second grade when her father unexpectedly loses his job. Ramona Quimby is a character intimately known by Beverly Cleary readers. In this story of Ramona's year in second grade they will come to know Mr. Quimby equally well. As it opens he loses his job without warning, and Ramona's seven-year-old view of this all-too-frequently family crisis rings every change of mood from tears to laughter. Not...

At almost-thirteen, Junebug has never felt right except as stagehand at her father's summer theater, but after her parents separate and an irritating intern takes over her responsibilities, she discovers how hard life can be without a script to follow.

After chess led to the destruction of her family four years earlier, Mallory Greenleaf's focus is a dead-end job that keeps the lights on for her mother and sisters. When she plays in a charity tournament and wipes the board with current world champion Nolan Sawyer, the victory opens the door to sorely needed cash prizes. Mallory struggles to keep her family separated from the game, but she soon realizes that the games aren't only on the board. The...

Five white teenage cousins who are struggling with the failures and racial ignorance of their dysfunctional parents and their wealthy grandparents, reunite for Easter.

With a young brother in the hospital, a grandfather in jail, and their mother traveling with a rodeo, Maggie and Vern try to settle family problems.

Jane lives in Toronto with her mother and grandmother. Then one day her father sends for her -- Jane didn't even know she had a father -- to come and visit him on Prince Edward Island. And no-one, not even her mother, has ever talked to her about him.

As author Jessica and artist Daphne collaborate on a picture book for a seventh-grade English class contest, Jessica becomes aware of conditions in Daphne's home life that seem to threaten her health and safety.

Abandoned by their father and living in poverty with their heartless stepmother in Louisiana, two sisters from the Philippines, twelve-year-old Sol and six-year-old Ming, learn the true meaning of family.

Unable to cope with her father's alcoholism, thirteen-year-old Sam corresponds with an older student, sharing her family problems and asking for advice.

Nine-year-old Thomas receives encouragement from many sources, including candid talks with Jesus, to help him tolerate the strict family life dictated by his deeply-religious father.