Sixth grader Abigail, assigned a different homeroom than her two best friends and made only the alternate on the pom-pom squad, learns a lot about popularity and true friendship when paired with unpopular Gabby for a year-long "Friendly Letter Assignment."

Lyle the crocodile thought everyone loved him until the day he received a hate note from an anonymous despiser.

Brian has always felt invisible at school, but when a new student, Justin, arrives, everything changes.

Chipmunks Cutesy, Blinky, and Bob want the same kind of attention people pay to other animals who live in the zoo, but when one of their plans succeeds, they see that being noticed is not always a good thing.

When her crush Brandon reveals that the animal shelter where he volunteers is in danger of being closed, Nikki and her friends enter an ice skating competition to help raise money, an effort that is compromised by an interfering Mackenzie.

When twelve-year-old Ana's zoologist parents move the whole family into the zoo, the Sneers--the clan of carnivorous female predators in her class--have even more ammunition to make her life miserable, although she tries to act like a chameleon and fade into the background.

When Justin Fisher, long-time class clown, realizes that his classmates are growing tired of his misdeeds, he declares war on their fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Tripp, in hopes of regaining his popularity.

"Outcast Vera and popular jock Max are up against dark forces that stretch much further than their small, coastal town-and into the very heart of evil"--

Eighth-grader Hannah Carlisle feels unattractive compared to her movie star parents and cliquish Beverly Hills classmates, and when her mother's cancer worsens and her father starts drinking heavily, Hannah's grief and anger turn into bulimia, which only her aunt, a documentary filmmaker, understands.

Branded as a troublemaker, seventeen-year-old Luke is sent to rural Tennessee to live with his preacher father, but when a freak accident removes golden boy (and high school bully) Grant from the top of the social pyramid, outcast Luke replaces him and achieves popularity, but is that what he really wants?