Zeus would rather be anywhere than here--Buffalo Falls, the tiny town his family moved to at the end of the school year. Having left all his friends back in Chicago, and with nothing to look forward to except helping out at his mother's cafe and biking around town with his weird little brother, Zeus is pretty sure this is destined to be the worst summer of his life. But then he meets Rose--funny, beautiful, smart, and an incredible musician.

When seventh-grader Bette finds an angel coin she puts it in her pocket and forgets it but soon the mysterious and kind Gabby moves into her building and helps her face her major losses, and then the coin connects her with three classmates who all find new ways to believe in themselves.

Haunted after helping her father on his ghost-themed Chicago bus tour, twelve-year-old Claire must discover what the spectral boy from the bus wants before it is too late. Claire has absolutely no interest in the paranormal. She's a scientist, which is why she can't think of anything worse than having to help out her dad on one of his ghost-themed Chicago bus tours. She thinks she's made it through when she sees a boy with a sad face and dark eyes...

Derek Fitzpatrick is kicked out of boarding school and must move with his stepmother to her childhood home in Illinois, where he meets Ashtyn Parker, who may be able to achieve her dream with Derek's help.

Twelve-year-old Lily mourns her brother, and has not spoken since the accident she feels she could have prevented, but the summer Tinny comes to town she is the only one who realizes Lily's secret.

To escape the violent cartel that is after them in Ciudad Juárez, siblings Sara and Emiliano flee across the border, seeking a better life in the United States and hoping to bring their pursuers to justice, only to discover that an even greater danger awaits them. What does it mean to be illegal in the United States? Life in Mexico is a death sentence for Emiliano and his sister Sara. To escape the violent cartel that is after them, they flee across...

On a cold winter day in Chicago, Early's father disappeared, and now she, her mother and her brother have been forced to flee their apartment and join the ranks of the homeless--and it is up to Early to hold her family together and solve the mystery surrounding her father.

Kermit, Oscar, Bert, Ernie and Cookie Monster join Big Bird in a bighearted, cross-country adventure. A meddling social worker sends poor Big Bird off to live with a feathered foster family in Illinois. But try as he might, he doesn't fit in and runs away to return to Sesame Street. Now his old friends need to find him before he runs 'afowl' of trouble en route.

Twelve-year-old Frankie Joe Huckaby, forced to live with the father he never knew, a stepmother, and four half-brothers in Illinois, starts a delivery service to finance his escape back to his mother in Texas, not realizing he is making a better life for himself than he ever had with her.

In 1995 Evanston, Illinois, sixteen-year-old Anna's perfectly normal life is turned upside-down when she meets Bennett, whose ability to travel through space and time creates complications for them both.