Through journal entries sixteen-year-old Miranda describes her family's struggle to survive after a meteor hits the moon, causing worldwide tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions.

When family members see the consequences of forgetting to write things on the grocery list, they not only do better at keeping the list up-to-date, they also help with the shopping to ensure they never again eat pickled grubs.

When a ghost shows up at the threshold to Ferris's grandmother Charisse's room, Ferris worries that she's there to take Charisse to the Great Beyond. But Charisse says that the ghost has something else in mind--something unpredictable, a task that's impractical and illuminating. But how can Ferris focus on completing an assignment for a ghost when her little sister is terrorizing the town, her uncle keeps sending her to spy on her aunt, and the house...

Winner of Newbery Award, 1995. After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother's route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also left.

Middle-schooler Greg Heffley nimbly sidesteps his father's attempts to change Greg's wimpy ways until his father threatens to send him to military school.

At the end of the nineteenth century, nine-year-old Almanzo lives with his family on a big farm in New York State where he raises his own two calves, helps cut ice and shear sheep, and longs for the day he can have his own colt.