On a summer visit to her grandmother's cottage by the ocean, twelve-year-old Martha gains perspective on the death of a classmate, on her relationship with her grandmother, on her feelings for an older boy, and on her plans to be a writer.

Sophomore Frankie starts dating senior Matthew Livingston, but when he refuses to talk about the all-male secret society that he and his friends belong to, Frankie infiltrates the society in order to enliven their mediocre pranks.

A young boy is depicted doing a variety of naughty things for which he is repeatedly admonished, but finally he gets a hug.

Many African stories are called "Spider stories". This book is about how that came to be. And it tells that long, long ago there were no stories on earth for children to hear. All stories belonged to Nyame, the Sky god. Ananse, the Spider man, wanted to buy some of these stories, so he spun a web up to the sky and went to bargain with the Sky god. The price the Sky god asked was Osebo, the leopard-of-the-terrible-teeth, Mmboro the hornet who-stings-like-fire...