For 12-year-old Julia Richards, life seems to be full of a lot of waiting: waiting for the cicadas to emerge, waiting with her best friend Taylor for the summer to get interesting, even waiting for her parents to let her move into the much cooler room down the hall. But perhaps the waiting might be over after new girl Alyssa and her plushy pink chair arrive across the street on Darcy Lane. However, when Alyssa challenges Julia for Taylor's friendship...

In the latest diary of middle-schooler Greg Heffley, he records his attempts to spend his summer vacation sensibly indoors playing video games and watching television, despite his mother's other ideas.

When Dekker and his little sister Riley are shipped off for the summer to their strange Aunt Primose in Button Hill, they think they are in for a long, boring summer. But when they find an old grandfather clock with a skull face, they are transported to another place, where children have special powers and the dead come to life.

Accompanying the Pike family during a two-week vacation to the Jersey Shore, baby-sitter Stacey falls head over heels for a handsome lifeguard despite Mary Anne's warning that he is too old for her.

Stuck in summer school while his friends enjoy a "Passport to Hawaii," nearly-eleven-year-old Hank needs to earn an A on an oral report about Einstein in order to participate in Magik 3's talent show act at the luau extravaganza.

"Jacky Hart has found a hidden talent in the performing arts, and she's a triple threat onstage! She wants nothing more than to act and sing all summer--but her parents have other plans for her"--