Alder has always lived in his cozy little house in Southern California. An old, reliable, comforting walnut tree has stood between his house and the one next door. When a new family--with a particularly annoying girl his age named Oak--moves into the neighboring house, they cut the tree down. As Oak and Alder start school together, they can't imagine ever becoming friends. But they soon discover a series of mysterious, possibly magical, connections...

"Mia Tang has a lot of secrets. Number 1: She lives in a motel, not a big house. Every day, while her immigrant parents clean the rooms, ten-year-old Mia manages the front desk of the Calivista Motel and tends to its guests. Number 2: Her parents hide immigrants. And if the mean motel owner, Mr. Yao, finds out they've been letting them stay in the empty rooms for free, the Tangs will be doomed. Number 3: She wants to be a writer. But how can she when...

After shattering his knee in a car accident, Ezra Faulkner loses his athletic ability and status at school. Forced to sit at the table of "misfits," Ezra meets the unusual Cassidy Thorpe, and with her help discovers a side of life he had been overlooking.

Catrina and her family are moving to the coast of Northern California because her little sister, Maya, is sick. Cat isn't happy about leaving her friends for Bah©Ưa de la Luna, but Maya has cystic fibrosis and will benefit from the cool, salty air that blows in from the sea. As the girls explore their new home, a neighbor lets them in on a secret: there are ghosts in Bah©Ưa de la Luna. Maya is determined to meet one, but Cat wants nothing to do...

When Shelley leaves Oregon to spend the winter in California, she feels she is the happiest girl in the world, for in her new high school, she meets Philip--the "only boy." A sixteen-year-old girl gains perspective into herself and her family when whe leaves her comfortable Oregon home and spends a year visiting with friends in California... She learns, in the midst of the friendly Michie family, that there are many ways to be oneself, and many different...

Since her parents' divorce, Dawn lives in Connecticut with her mother while her brother and father are in California, but after a week's vacation in sunny, healthy southern California, Dawn isn't sure she wants to return to the East Coast.

Serene dreams of making couture dresses even more stunning than her mom's, but for now she's an intern at her mom's fashion label. When her mom receives a sudden diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, all that changes. Serene has to take over her mother's business overnight, dealing with ruthless investors who do not think a seventeen-year-old can run a fashion empire, while trying to figure out what happened with her dad in Beijing. He left before she was...

"Sixteen-year-old Charlie has always been a tomboy, but when she accidentally becomes a makeup model, her newfound feminity draws her into an unknown social world, complete with guy troubles she's never had before"--

"Charlotte and Frankie think their lives are much more boring than the teen novels they read, but when Charlotte decides to write about their experiences, they realize much more is happening than meets the eye"--

Conditions worsen for the remaining young residents of a small California coastal town isolated by supernatural events when their food supplies dwindle and the Darkness underground awakens.