Seventh-grader Georges adjusts to moving from a house to an apartment, his father's efforts to start a new business, his mother's extra shifts as a nurse, being picked on at school, and Safer, a boy who wants his help spying on another resident of their building.

When sixth-grader Mac discovers several words of his classroom copy of Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic are blacked out he is outraged, so he, his friends, and his eccentric family set out to do something about the censorship imposed by one teacher and the school board.

After her home is attacked by shapeshifting vampires, twelve-year-old Serwa Boateng is sent to live with her aunt and cousin in Maryland, but the aspiring vampire hunter discovers that middle school is harder than it appears on television, especially when she has to avoid detention and turn her classmates into warriors before they become vampire food.