Eleven-year-old Edgar and his mother move to Dawson, a town in Yukon, Canada, for a new start, but when Edgar fears his mother's destructive behavior will force them to leave, he turns to a dog named Benjamin to help him stop the worst from happening.

"After Pop is sent back to rehab, Jane Pengilly arrives at her newest foster home determined to stick to the straight and narrow and get back to her beloved dad as soon as she can. It's not the first time they've been apart, but Jane's determined it will be the last. Twelve days out in the boonies of Three Boulders makes Jane miss Pop more than ever. But as the days go by, she realizes that family is more than who you're related to--and that a home...

In 1861 seventeen-year-old Abbie Garrett, living on Staten Island with her Southern mother and Yankee father, finds herself drawn firmly into the growing conflict between the North and the South with the arrival of her cousin Lorena from Charleston and the return from Atlanta of the two McIntyre brothers, the elder of whom has always had a special place in Abbie's heart.

When Jake, thirteen, and Taylor, eleven, learn that their mother is still alive but facing grave danger if they do not return the money they took from her abusive boyfriend, Bull, they leave their father, who is not eager to help, and set off on their own again for a late autumn trek from Wyoming to Pittsburgh.

At seventeen, Daisy feels imprisoned by her brother Steven's autism and its effects and her only escape is through her trumpet into the world of jazz, but when her parents decide to send Steven to an institution she is not ready to let him go.

After the death of their mother, thirteen-year-old Serenity Evans and her younger brother go to live with their grandparents, who try to keep them safe from bad influences and help them come to terms with what has happened to their family. Includes recipe for red velvet cake.

Follows three southern girls--Murphy, Leeda, and Birdie--as they prepare to leave the Darlington Peach Orchard, vowing to remain friends as they go their separate ways.

Deeply depressed after her father cheated on and divorced her mother, seventeen-year-old Adele has gained over seventy pounds and is being bullied and abused at school--to the point of being raped and accused of being the aggressor.

Kirsten and Walk, seventh-graders at an elite private school, alternate telling how race, wealth, weight, and other issues shape their relationships as they and other misfits stand up to a mean but influential classmate, even as they are uncovering a long-kept secret about themselves.

Fourteen-year-old Joseph tries to avoid trouble and keep in touch with his father, who is serving in Iraq, as he and his alcoholic, drug-addicted mother move from one homeless shelter to another.