When a serious case of acne threatens thirteen-year-old Olivia's budding relationship with classmate J.W., as well as her career as an actress in television commercials, she must rethink the path she has been following.

When thirteen-year-old Charlie compromises her values to help Lauren, one of the popular girls, cheat on a test, her identical twin sister, Sammie, is inadvertantly pulled into the mess.

Sophia Garcia, thirteen, wants to excel at softball like her older sister, Ellie, and make her family proud, but when she is chosen for a different team and position than Ellie, she must learn to succeed by being herself.

Berkeley, California, middle-schooler Jason Jameson has a close encounter of the fun kind when Sam, a bluish alien from the Pleiades, arrives in a 1960 Dodge Dart spaceship and invites Jason to go fishing.

In 1950s California, grieving Mildred Clausen tries to have her son, who was killed in World War II, cloned but instead, a Japanese man emerges and her niece, Ella Mae, befriends him, in spite of the town's intense prejudice and her aunt's conviction that he is her son's killer.

When sixteen-year-old Mina is forced to take a class to help her decide whether or not to become a vampire like her parents, she also faces a choice between her life-long best friend and the boy she has a crush on versus new friends and possible boyfriends in her mandatory "vampire lessons."

Four diverse junior high school students face adversity in the form of budding romantic relationships, gangs demanding proof of loyalty, feelings of insecurity, the quest for popularity in a new school, and more.

In 1874, Andi, the youngest of five children growing up on a California ranch, wants a horse of her own for her sixth birthday but her family believes her pony, Coco, is just right until Andi is older. Includes historical notes.

"Shawna Stone, 16, has learned to handle anything from a Las Vegas hustle to skipping out on the rent. Scarred inside and out, she's survived with a tough, hardened attitude. When her mother abandons her in Vegas, with only a bus ticket and the name and number of a stranger to call, this troubled, desperate teen finds herself on a California horse ranch with Kay Stone, the steely, youngish grandmother she's never known." -- Book jacket.