The students in Miss Mackle's third-grade class enjoy a day of Halloween surprises, including Harry's unusual costume.

A traumatic event near the end of the summer has a devastating effect on Melinda's freshman year in high school.

Steven "Crash" Crashinsky relates his sordid ten-year relationship with David "Burn" Burnett, the boy he stopped from taking their high school hostage at gunpoint.

Four-year-old Sam's appearance as a zookeeper at his nursery school's Future Job Day leads him to a number of exciting activities and discoveries, including reading.

Feeling alienated from everyone around her, Los Angeles high school senior and cinephile Victoria Denton hides behind the identity of a favorite movie character until an interesting new boy arrives at school and helps her realize that there is more to life than just the movies.

In alternating chapters, seventeen-year-olds Caleb and Maggie relate the difficulties of readjusting to school, and changing relationships with family, friends, and one another, a year after a drunk driving accident sent her to the hospital with a crippling leg injury and him to prison.

In a series of diary entries, Leigh tells how he comes to terms with his parents' divorce, acquires joint custody of an abandoned dog, and joins the track team at school.

When Horrible Harry's pet cat, Googer, sneaks a ride and gets into the school building, third-graders Harry and Doug have to catch him before anyone else does, which means going into some forbidden places.

Welcome to Cliffside High, the school of your nightmares. It's run by the Huns, a ruthless clique of rich students-and, as poor Charity Chase discovers, messing with them can be murder. There's Tiffany, avid reader of every beauty magazine available; Brooke, desperate for a date; Danielle, Al Capone in Miss America's body, with her sights set firmly on a millionaire's son Drew. Unfortunately, like every other boy at Cliffside, Drew only has eyes...

Inspired by his third-grade class's study of the moon, Harry announces that he is going there.