On New Year's Eve, Karen asks her brothers and sisters to make a promise, but when they all start breaking them and call her a spy, she wonders why everyone is being bad except her.

When Ari's mother died four years ago, she had two final wishes: that Ari and her older brother, Gage, would stay together always, and that Ari would go to Carter, the middle school for gifted students. So when nineteen-year-old Gage decides he can no longer live with their bossy guardian, Janna, Ari knows she has to go with him. But it's been two months, and Gage still hasn't found them an apartment. He and Ari have been "couch surfing," staying...

After Pinkalicious uses all of Alison's pink paint in class, she wonders how she can repay her best friend.

"When an injured peacock takes shelter in the barn on Paige's family farm, she hopes she has time to nurse it back to health before Paige's mom sells the farm. Paige promised her dad before he died that she would take care of the farm, but there's only so much a 12-year-old can do alone. She'll have to learn that sometimes it's okay to let go of something good if it means holding on to something better"--

Toby has to finish the final thing on The List. It's a list of brave, daring, totally awesome things that he and his best friend, Lucas, planned to do together, and the only item left is to hike the Appalachian Trail. But now Lucas isn't there to do it with him. Toby's determined to hike the trail alone and fulfill their pact, which means dealing with the little things -- the blisters, the heat, the hunger -- and the big things -- the bears, the loneliness,...

"For her high school graduation, Richelle Bach's father gives her and her identical twin sister, Michelle, matching opal necklaces. "These opals look identical," he tells them, "but the fire inside each is completely unique--just like the two of you." The two sisters couldn't be more different, and their paths diverge as they embark on adulthood. Years pass, until--at their father's behest--they both come home for Christmas. What happens then forever...