This is the story of a secret, and also a secret story. This is the story of Cass and Max-Ernest, two friendless 11-year olds who come together to solve the mystery surrounding a dead magician and the clues he left behind. When they find a mysterious case containing vials of liquid labeled The Symphony of Smells with an encoded message asking for help, they decide to investigate. Along the way they must solve puzzles and word games and face incredible danger to answer their questions.

Jackson and his family have fallen on hard times. There's no more money for rent, and not much for food either. His parents, his little sister, and their dog may have to live in their minivan. Again. Crenshaw is a cat. He's large, outspoken, and imaginary. Crenshaw comes back into Jackson's life to help him, but is an imaginary friend enough to save this family from losing everything?

Seventh-grader Tristan Strong feels anything but strong ever since he failed to save his best friend when they were in a bus accident together. All he has left of Eddie is the journal his friend wrote stories in. Tristan is also dreading the month he's going to spend on his grandparents' farm, but on his first night there, a sticky creature shows up and steals Eddie's notebook. Tristan chases after it, and a tug-of-war ensues between them underneath a bottle tree. In a last attempt to get it away from the creature, Tristan punches the tree, accidentally ripping open a chasm into the MidPass, a volatile place with a burning sea, haunted bone ships, and iron monsters.

With the rise of the Berlin Wall, twelve-year-old Gerta finds her family suddenly divided. She, her mother, and her brother Fritz live on the eastern side, controlled by the Soviets. Her father and middle brother, who had gone west in search of work, cannot return home. Then, when she receives a mysterious drawing, Gerta puts two and two together and concludes that her father wants Gerta and Fritz to tunnel beneath the wall, out of East Berlin. However, if they are caught, the consequences will be deadly.

Billy Dickens hasn’t seen or talked to his father in years, which is why he's flying all the way from Florida up to Montana to visit him. The thing is, his father doesn’t know he's coming, and Billy isn't even sure if he’ll want to see him. This humorous story turns into a wild adventure as Billy is let into his father’s secret life.

Nine-year-old Ada has never left her one-room apartment. Her mother is too humiliated by Ada's twisted foot to let her outside, but when her little brother Jamie is shipped out of London to escape the war, Ada doesn't waste a minute—she sneaks out to join him.

The shortest kid in the second grade, James Moody, also known as Stink, learns all about the shortest president of the United States, James Madison, when they celebrate Presidents' Day at school.

On a cross-country vacation with their parents, twins Coke and Pepsi, soon to be thirteen, fend off strange assassins as they try to come to terms with their being part of a top-secret government organization known as The Genius Files.

The Earth is being invaded, but no one knows about it. When Jake, Rachel, Tobias, Cassie, and Marco stumble upon a downed alien spaceship and its dying pilot, they're given an incredible power -- they can transform into any animal they touch.

Twelve-year-old Artemis Fowl is a millionaire, a genius—and, above all, a criminal mastermind. But even Artemis doesn’t know what he’s taken on when he kidnaps a fairy, Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon Unit. These aren’t the fairies of bedtime stories; these fairies are armed and dangerous. Can Artemis outwit the fairies to restore his family fortune, or is his criminal enterprise about to crumble?