While traveling to her aunt's home in Redbud by train and stagecoach, quiet young Emily and her turtle, Rufus, team up with Jackson, fellow orphan and troublemaker extraordinaire, to outsmart mean Uncle Victor, who is after Emily's inheritance.

During a student exchange program, seventh-graders Ivy June and Catherine share their lives, homes, and communities, finding that although their lifestyles are total opposites, they still have a lot in common.

Once again the Hatford brothers and the Malloy sisters find themselves pitted against each other when embarrassing pictures of the boys turn up in the girls' basement, and the boys try to figure out how to get them back.

Disgusted that a family with three girls moves into the house across the river, nine-year-old Wally and his three brothers declare a practical joke war on the girls.

When he finds a lost beagle in the hills behind his West Virginia home, Marty tries to hide it from his family and the dog's real owner, a mean-spirited man known to shoot deer out of season and to mistreat his dogs.

Alice's first year in high school gets off to a difficult start when she and her boyfriend Patrick break up, but with the help of her father, older brother, and best friends, she gains a better sense of her own self-worth.

Sixth-grader Marty and his family try to help their rough neighbor, Judd Travers, change his mean ways, even though their West Virginia community continues to expect the worst of him.

As the end of summer approaches, the Malloy girls decide they will really try to get along with the Hatford boys before moving back to Ohio, but after all the practical jokes and competitions of the previous year, the boys just do not trust the girls.

After she, her older brother, and their father move from Chicago to Maryland, Alice has trouble fitting into her new third grade class, but with the help of some new friends and her own unique outlook, she survives.

Fifth grade is tumultuous for Alice as she tries to help others through the many changes occurring at home and in school, including learning about sex when Rosalind gets her period and shares a book that explains what is happening.