Sixth-grader Sugar and her mother lose their beloved house and experience the harsh world of homelessness.

Franny tries to follow her mother's suggestion to change her appearance, but by turning hair styling into a science experiment she creates some very greedy pigtails that terrorize the town.

While spending a summer with her famous mother and her criminal boyfriend, Sydney Reilly, age fifteen, finds love with Nicco but her premonition of something bad coming proves dreadfully accurate.

A poor girl delights in her coat of many colors, made by her mother from rags, because despite the ridicule of the other children she knows the coat was made with love.

Little Sal and Little Bear both lose their mothers while eating blueberries and almost end up with the other's mother.

The making of "Show ways," or quilts which once served as secret maps for freedom-seeking slaves, is a tradition passed from mother to daughter in the author's family.

Twelve-year-old Lou Montgomery's life has been centered on her mother's terrifying plan to make her a singing star, but a crisis reveals Lou's sensory processing disorder and people determined to help her address it.

"For years, Miranda has stared at postcards of August Isle, Florida. The town where her mother spent her summers as a girl. The town that Miranda has always ached to visit. She just never wanted it to happen this way. When she arrives on the Isle, alone and uncertain, to stay the summer with an old friend of her mother's, Miranda discovers a place even more perfect than she imagined. And she finds a new friend in Sammy, “Aunt” Clare's daughter....

While living with her estranged mother at mysterious Mallory Estate, twelve-year-old Piper Peavey must undergo three trials to obtain from the enchanted garden an elixir that might save her dying father.

For two years, twelve-year-old Hazel has coped with her mum's accidental death by over protecting her sister and Mama, but when Mama reconnects with her first love, roles begin to shift.