Twelve-year-old Hattie's life is changed when her mentally challenged uncle comes to live with her family.

It's looking to be a hard holiday season for the girls of Main Street. For Flora and Ruby, it's the first Christmas without their parents around. For Olivia, gift giving and tree decorating must be balanced with the fact that both of her parents need jobs. And for Nikki, there's the presence of her mean, angry father to reckon with. Luckily, the girls have each other--and the community around them. As Camden Falls prepares for its annual festivities,...

Flora finds herself in a middle of a fight between her old best friend Annika, who comes to Camden Falls for a visit, and her new best friend Olivia.

"Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle has left her Upside-Down House and the animals that live there in the care of her twenty-something niece, Missy. Luckily for the town's families, Missy Piggle-Wiggle is capable of concocting the same sort of inventive cures for bad behavior that made her aunt an indispensable community resource"--

Flora and Ruby's Aunt Allie is finally getting her chance to adopt a baby, and they travel with her to New York City to do some sightseeing while she waits for the baby's birth.

Even though Missy Piggle-Wiggle is preoccupied with repairing her Upside-Down House that was damaged in a storm, she always finds time to administer her magical cures that rid children in Little Spring Valley of their unwanted habits and misbehavior.

When Nikki's father left her family, she thought all of the screaming and fighting at home would be over, but when he returns, she calls on the support of her mother and friends to pull her through the difficult time.

Feeling isolated as the only African American in her sixth grade class, Jessi gains a sense of belonging by participating in the Baby-sitters Club, learning sign language in order to communicate with a deaf child, and dancing in a ballet.

When a fight breaks out among the members of the Babysitters Club, timid Mary Anne finds herself becoming more assertive as a baby sitter and in her relationships with her father and friends.

Things go awry when Annabelle, a fragile, timid porcelain doll who lives in a Victorian dollhouse, tries to share some of her Christmas traditions with best friend Tiffany, a sturdy, adventurous plastic doll who lives in a modern dollhouse.