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. As Sal entertains her grandparents with Phoebe's outrageous story, her own story begins to unfold, the story of a thirteen-year-old girl whose only wish is to be reunited with her missing mother. Here the author weaves together two tales,...

While trying to find a new best friend after feuding with Rowley, middle-school slacker Greg Heffley is warned by older family members that adolescence is a time to act more responsibly and to think seriously about his future.

"Beverly put her foot down on the gas. They went faster still. This was what Beverly wanted -- what she always wanted. To get away. To get away as fast as she could. To stay away. Beverly Tapinski has run away from home plenty of times, but that was when she was just a kid. By now, she figures, it's not running away. It's leaving. Determined to make it on her own, Beverly finds a job and a place to live and tries to forget about her dog, Buddy, now...

When sixth-grader Mac discovers several words of his classroom copy of Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic are blacked out, he is outraged, so he, his friends, and his eccentric family set out to do something about the censorship imposed by one teacher and the school board.

Greg Heffley tells about his summer vacation and his attempts to steer clear of trouble when he returns to middle school and tries to keep his older brother Rodrick from telling everyone about Greg's most humiliating experience of the summer.

A tongue-in-cheek take on classic themes in children's literature, in which the four Willoughby children set out to become "deserving orphans" after their neglectful parents embark on a treacherous around-the-world adventure, leaving them in the care of an odious nanny.

Jake, a budding juvenile delinquent, is sent for home schooling to the arty and eccentric Applewhite family's Creative Academy, where he discovers talents and interests he never knew he had.

"Albert is desperate for a pet, so he's really excited when Dad finally brings one home. There's just one problem: it's a potato."--

Left alone when Rush, Mark, and Mona go away to boarding school, Randy and Oliver are lonely and bored until a mysterious letter brings the first of many clues to a mystery that takes all winter to solve.

Anastasia's 10th year has some good things like falling in love and really getting to know her grandmother and some bad things like finding out about an impending baby brother.