Greg Heffley tells about his summer vacation and his attempts to steer clear of trouble when he returns to middle school and tries to keep his older brother Rodrick from telling everyone about Greg's most humiliating experience of the summer.

Harrison, a foster kid, gets a new home where the parents are kind and the dad is the football coach. Before long he is the star running back on the junior high school team.

Charlotte, twelve, and Ben, eleven, are highly-skilled competitors at online Scrabble and that connection helps both as they face family issues and the turmoil of middle school.

"When Rafe Khatchadorian goes on a trip to Alaska, he's in for a blundering adventure that includes building igloos, racing across icebergs, and coming face-to-face with a polar bear"--

Ten-year-old Auggie Pullman, who was born with extreme facial abnormalities and was not expected to survive, goes from being home-schooled to entering fifth grade at a private middle school in Manhattan, which entails enduring the taunting and fear of his classmates as he struggles to be seen as just another student.

Greg is worried about being suspected of damaging school property while he is snowed in with his family in a cabin during Christmastime.

Settled in at her new school and flanked by awesome friends Chloe and Zoey, life is looking up for Nikki Maxwell, especially since her crush, Brandon, asked her to be his lab partner a seriously awesome development. However, when Nikki overhears mean girl MacKenzie bragging that Brandon's taking her to the Halloween dance, a bummed Nikki signs on to spend Halloween at a kids party with her little sister, Brianna, instead. After she finds out Mackenzie...

Mean-girl, Sydney Whitman, moved away, but new girl, Olivia is worse.

Both Nate Wright and school bully Randy Betancourt have crushes on the new girl Ruby, and altercations between the two boys result in peer counseling sessions that eventually lead to an unlikely friendship and their becoming teammates on the school's ultimate frisbee Mud Bowl team.

Principal Smelt has created the Fun-ger Games for Softrock Middle School's students, and Rob Burnside, his life in ruins, hopes that Katfish, a cross between Katniss and the Little Mermaid created in Rob's closet, will help with game tips, advice about girls, and how to get people to stop hating him.