When things go wrong during a day at the beach, like a ball that drifts away or a gooey ice cream mess, a father could do a lot of things but always picks the loving one.

"It's the start of the school year, and nothing feels right to Justin. He didn't get the teacher he wanted, he's not in the same class as his best friend, and his little sister, Elizabeth, is starting kindergarten at his school. Elizabeth doesn't seem nervous at all. Justin is very nervous about third grade. And to top it off, he's lost his favorite stuffed animal, but he can't tell anyone, because technically he's too old to still have stuffed animals....

Spurred by a special project from her social studies teacher, seventh-grader Bethesda Fielding uncovers the secret identity of her music teacher, which leads to a most unusual concert performance and a tutoring assignment.

When a child is too full of questions about the world to go to sleep, her patient father offers up increasingly creative responses to his child's nighttime wonderings.

"Mr. Stink stank. He also stunk. And if it was correct English to say he stinked, then he stinked as well... Chloe sees Mr. Stink every day, but she's never spoken to him. Which isn't surprising, because he's a tramp, and he stinks. But there's more to Mr. Stink than meets the eye (or nose) and before she knows it, Chloe has an unusual new friend hiding in her garden shed. As Chloe struggles to keep Mr. Stink a secret, and her dad tries to hide a...

On her mother's birthday, Nancy gives her a total beauty makeover in the yard outside, which she has converted into a fancy salon.

"Speak up for yourself - we want to know what you have to say." From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows that this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. As time passes, she becomes increasingly isolated and practically stops talking altogether. Only...

As memories of childhood sexual assault resurface in her first year of college, eighteen-year-old East Indian American Gita struggles to maintain her model student persona.

In the summer before college, eighteen-year-old Blake Brenner works to join the exclusive Serena Society with her girlfriend, and turns to alcohol to cope with the pressure of pledging, as her pursuit of success begins to strain her relationships.

Struggling to cope with his mother's sudden death and growing feelings of isolation from his father and brother, seventeen-year-old Will turns to philosophy for answers to life's biggest questions, while finding some solace in a new love.