A foster child named Angel and twelve-year-old Stella, who are living with Stella's great-aunt Louise at the Linger Longer Cottage Colony on Cape Cod, secretly assume responsibility for the vacation rentals when Louise unexpectedly dies and the girls are afraid of being returned to the foster care system.

Finley Hart is sent to her grandparents' house for the summer, but her overwhelmingly sad days continue until she escapes into her writings, which soon turn mysteriously real as she realizes she must save this magical world in order to save herself.

In 1927 Vermont, eleven-year-old Donut, recently orphaned after the death of her beloved pops, stands to lose everything when she learns her Aunt Agnes plans to move her to Boston, but Donut has no intention of leaving her friends or her home.

In a remarkable world where many people are blessed with a special Talent, 11-year-old Cady is an orphan with a phenomenal ability for cake baking. Cady meets a ragtag group of siblings struggling to grow beyond their Talents, the woman without any words, and the devious thief on a single-minded mission.

Eleven-year-old Tabitha Crum, whose parents were just about to abandon her, is invited to the country estate of a wealthy countess along with five other children and told that one of them will become her heir.