Seventh-grader Sharkita "Kita" embarks on a tumultuous journey to keep her family together while handling the consequences of her mother's alcoholism.

Maverick Falconer is just starting middle school and he wishes he were a hero like his father because maybe then he could deal with his mother's drinking and series of abusive boyfriends, not to mention the kids who bully him in middle school (pretty much the same ones who bullied him in elementary school)--but as the year passes he begins to realize that other kids have problems too, and maybe if they can all survive sixth-grade things will get better....

When eleven-year-old Ivy Blake leaves the nice farm family where she has been living in upstate New York and moves back in with her mother she is finally forced to face up to the fact that her alcoholic, dysfunctional parent will never be able to provide her with a stable home--and if she wants to achieve her dreams she is going to have to take charge of her own future.