Twelve-year-old Alexis was born in Hawaii and loves exploring her island paradise, but she's afraid of the ocean, actually—afraid of the various creatures who live in it. She still remembers the day a viper moray eel, looking like a monster, startled her when it popped out of a coral reef. When she tried to swim away, she got caught in a riptide until her dad rescued her. Now, even when her friends are surfing and swimming in the ocean, Alex watches from the beach. Alex's mom works as a civilian contractor for the Navy. Alex thinks it's cool that her mom works in intelligence on a submarine, but her job requires her to be away from home a lot. When she's gone, she leaves codes and puzzles for her daughter and friends to solve, including a small prize. A special birthday puzzle has a new twist—it leads Alex to visit their grumpy older neighbor whom everyone calls Uncle Tanaka, a retired marine biologist. Knowing her mom is away on an assignment, Uncle Tanaka...

Living on a small Idaho vegetable farm, Paige's family has faced tough times before, but a year after the loss of her father, her mom is overwhelmed by the financial challenges and reluctantly agrees to sell the farm. However, when a realtor pounds the "For Sale" sign into the family's front yard, the reality (and finality) of it is almost too much to bear. Paige is determined to do whatever it takes to save her father's farm, which has been in their family for generations. With the help of her little brother, her best friends, Matteo and Kimana, and, of course, her trusty farm dog, T-Rex, Paige believes she can use her "farm smarts," however sneaky, to try to stop the sale of the farm. She puts makeup on the cows so they look sickly to potential buyers, and she pranks the realtor by releasing a jar of grasshoppers in her car. Her efforts don't stop reality from setting in; her mother and grandfather just don't have enough money to keep the farm running and selling it...

Can two friends solve the mystery of Liam's "curse" by using their knowledge of fairy tales? Something is wrong with Liam. He collapses during soccer practice, he can't stay awake in class, and he's starting to see a ghostly white fox that disappears into smoke. His parents and teachers accuse him of being lazy and staying up too late, but he knows it's something worse. No one believes him except for Alaina, a friend and self-proclaimed expert in fantasy and fairy tales. She's seen this sort of thing before and believes Liam has been cursed with a powerful sleeping spell. Her journal is full of possible ways to break a curse. Liam is skeptical, but with his normal life slipping further away, he agrees to try her potential cures. As they search for answers in stories, Alaina shares that she also is dealing with something no one else can see: type 1 diabetes. It rears its head like an invisible dragon, and she carries her medical equipment as a knight's...