Middle-schooler Greg Heffley nimbly sidesteps his father's attempts to change Greg's wimpy ways until his father threatens to send him to military school.

When her former best friend gets popular and leaves her behind, sixth-grader Ruth prefers to be alone, studying for the school spelling bee, until she finds a riddle in an old book.

"Twelve-year-old Mysti Murphy of Texas wishes she were a character in a book. If her life were fiction, she'd know how to solve her problems at school, take care of her family when her dad has to spend time in the hospital, and deal with her family's secret: that her mother is agoraphobic and never leaves the house"--

Griffin Bing is in big trouble when a Super Bowl ring disappears from his middle school's display case, replaced by Griffin's retainer, and the more he and his friends investigate, the worse his situation becomes.

Best friends Fonda, Drew, and Ruthie make a pact to have their first kisses on the same night.--

11-year-old Robert Arthur must vanquish Professor Gargoyle and learn the creepy origin story of the brand new Lovecraft Middle School (LMS)

"Link, Michael, and Dana live in a quiet town. But it's woken up very quickly when someone sneaks into school and vandalizes it with a swastika. Nobody can believe it. How could such a symbol of hate end up in the middle of their school? Who would do such a thing? Because Michael was the first person to see it, he's the first suspect. Because Link is one of the most popular guys in school, everyone's looking to him to figure it out. And because Dana's...

When Miss Know-It-All's inbox overflows with pleas for guidance, Nikki Maxwell, the school newspaper advice columnist, turns to her best friends for help.

Harvey, upset when his Darth Paper finger puppet brings humiliation, gets Dwight suspended, but Origami Yoda asks Tommy and Kellan, now in seventh grade, to make a new casefile to persuade the School Board to reinstate Dwight.

When her mother gets a new boyfriend, sixth-grader Annabelle gets to cope with a new town, a new school, and a new puppy and, while training her puppy, she decides to apply some of the same techniques to tame the unruly boys that are making her middle-school life miserable.