Hoping to keep his older brother Nathan silent about his secret crush on another boy at their school, twelve-year-old Alan agrees to a ruthless sibling competition involving nearly impossible tasks--from standing up to their demanding father to getting a first kiss.

Twelve-year-old Maisie feels that she has enough complications in her life: her actor uncle has moved in with her family while he recovers from an accident and her father is not pleased, her grandmother is slipping into dementia but wants to remarry, her mom has been laid off, and her best friend Cyrus, with whom she spends Saturdays watching classic movies, has revealed that he is gay--but Gary, the boy he has a crush on, seems more attracted to...