Thirteen-year-old Meg's envy of her sister's beauty and popularity makes it difficult to cope with Molly's strange illness and eventual death.

When homeschooled farm girl Piper McCloud reveals her ability to fly, she is quickly taken to a secret government facility to be trained with other exceptional children, but she soon realizes that something is very wrong and begins working with brilliant and wealthy Conrad to escape

Fourteen-year-old Mike, whose father is a brilliant mathematician but who has no math aptitude himself, spends the summer in rural Pennsylvania with his elderly and eccentric relatives Moo and Poppy, helping the townspeople raise money to adopt a Romanian orphan.

Twelve-year-old identical twins Jay and Ray have long resented that everyone treats them as one person, and so they hatch a plot to take advantage of a clerical error at their new school and pretend they are just one

Gertie the hen is appalled when her son Frank wants to swim with the ducks, but Jemima and her mother, the farmer's wife, make him a special outfit so that his dream can come true

When Stephanie comes to school with her hair in a ponytail, all the other students copy her, so she decides to change her hairstyle every day, with disastrous results.

A child who has trouble with some of the soccer skills finds an important role as goalie

No one knows Fancy like Nancy . . . . . . and no one knows Halloween like Nancy!

Because he doesn't like mud, Otis is different from the other pigs and has trouble finding friends

Encouraged by his sidekicks, the glow-in-the-dark plankton, a self-doubting whale learns that anyone can be an artist and everyone has something unique to contribute