With her kitten, Moisturizer, missing and having fought with her best friend, Margaret, eight-year-old Clementine finds it hard to concentrate on doing her best as her classmate's Friend of the Week.

When the massive metal tank filled with sticky brown molasses that rises up over her crowded North End neighborhood explodes, young Carmen must fight for her life, as a tsunami of molasses rushes through the streets.

In 1968 Massachusetts, after her brother Patrick goes to fight in Vietnam, fifteen-year-old Molly records in her diary how she misses her brother, volunteers at a Veterans' Administration Hospital, and tries to make sense of the war in Vietnam and the tumultuous events in the United States. Includes historical notes.

A young silversmith apprentice becomes involved in the American struggle for independence.

When a diamond goes missing from the Louvre, it is up to nine-year-old Julieta to identify the thief, exonerate her father, and return home to Boston before her baby brother is born. Includes glossary of French and Spanish words and notes about the Regent Diamond, Athena, and works of art mentioned in the book.