In 1934, a thirteen-year-old with a gift for numbers is offered the chance to leave her family's dairy farm to spend one term at an exclusive Philadelphia girls' school preparing for a scholarship exam.

Collin can't help himself--he has a unique condition that leads him to count every letter spoken to him. It's a quirk that makes him a prime target for bullies and a continual frustration to the adults around him, including his father. When Collin is asked to leave yet another school, his dad decides to send him to live in Minnesota with the mother he's never met. She is Ojibwe and lives on a reservation. Collin arrives in Duluth with his loyal dog,...

Mr. Fussy, who must organize everything into its right place, has his world turned upside down when his cousin Mr. Clumsy comes to visit.

At the family cabin by the lake where his grandfather died two years ago, eleven-year-old Cooper Cameron spends the summer trying to rid himself of the rituals that allow him to cope with his grief and fear.

In the three years since her father's death, Arizona eighteen-year-old Regina has loaned her mother thousands of dollars to cover her compulsive spending and gambling, while coping with her own stress by overeating, but when her mother wins the lottery, Reg hopes their troubles are over.