As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.

A group of teens at the Hope Juvenile Treatment Center are shocked to discover their guards have abandoned them, but their joy turns to fear when they learn a catastrophic pandemic has occurred outside their walls, turning their new-found freedom into a fight for survival.

When four teens who would never interact socially find themselves running from a party that is being busted by the cops, they flee in a SUV they find nearby. Unbeknownst to them, they have just stolen a police car that is filled with drugs. Afraid they'll be in terrible trouble, they go to a cabin in the woods to calm down. There they face down their own inner demons as they make decisions that could change the entire course of their futures.

Teenaged Isaac, who steals to give his younger sister the basic necessities that his alcoholic mother cannot provide, is sentenced to a juvenile detention center and during therapy sessions with fellow criminals, a repressed memory surfaces that changes everything.

When Miles is put on probation for stealing a car, he learns about hot rods and rebuilding cars. When the project is stolen, Miles has to face up to his friends.

When Liam, a fourteen-year-old graffiti artist, can't keep his grades up and is threatened by a local gang in the projects of Minneapolis, his mother sends him to Lake Michigan for the summer.

Twelve-year-old Jonathan Grisby has been sent to the Slabhenge Reformatory School for Troubled Boys, a former lunatic asylum which is currently run by a sadist who enjoys punishing the boys and setting them against each other; but when a lightning strike kills all the adults the boys find themselves suddenly free--and trapped on Scar Island which seems to be sinking into the ocean.

Garvie Smith is a sixteen-year-old with a genius level IQ, who can not be bothered with school, smokes cannabis, and hangs out with the bad boys--but when fifteen-year-old Chloe Dow is murdered he comes up against the ambitious Detective Inspector Singh, and both of them are determined to solve the case.

The lives of Jason Wilder and Meili Wen intersect in the delinquent-proof room for in-school suspension, known as the Rubber Room, and Jason's growing, fierce protectiveness of Meili explodes into violence when her chance to return to her wealthy lifestyle in Hong Kong--and his opportunity to escape poverty, loneliness, and the past--is threatened.

After being caught stealing one too many times, Benjamin Waterfalls is sent to a "boot camp" at the Ojibwe reservation where he searches for answers as he tries to turn his life around and embrace this second chance.