Eleven-year-old Cyrus knows he is not cut out to be a football hero or fireman like his adopted father, but it takes a skittish stray dog to teach him that he, too, can be brave.

Ten-year-old Auggie Pullman, who was born with extreme facial abnormalities and was not expected to survive, goes from being home-schooled to entering fifth grade at a private middle school in Manhattan, which entails enduring the taunting and fear of his classmates as he struggles to be seen as just another student.

Since her father's death, Cora, twelve, longs for a permanent home for herself, her special-needs sister, and their mother while navigating middle school and studying trees using her father's field notes.

Twelve-year-old Rahul Kapoor, an Indian-American boy growing up in small-town Indiana, struggles to come to terms with his identity, including that he may be gay.