When four very different small-town Delaware high school girls are forced to join a mother-daughter book club over summer vacation, they end up learning about more than just the books they read.

"The story itself is simple. Boy gets up, boy goes to school, boy comes home from school, boy goes to bed. Boy seems a bit grumpy, until the end of the day when he comes home to his cat, who he clearly loves. The boys story is told in a traditional picture book style--in the meantime, the cat's story is told in graphic panels. Throughout the entire book, the boy tells the reader how much he dislikes stories, all kinds of stories inspired by his surroundings...

After suffering a tragic loss, eleven-year-old Ollie only finds solace in books. So when she happens upon a crazed woman at the river threatening to throw a book into the water, Ollie doesn't think--she just acts, stealing the book and running away. As she begins to read the slender volume, Ollie discovers a chilling story about a girl named Beth, the two brothers who both loved her, and a peculiar deal made with "the smiling man," a sinister specter...

When Belle comes across a mysterious book in the Beast's library, she finds herself transported to a fantasy world of her dreams, and she must uncover the secrets about the book before she is lost inside it forever.

Urano, killed in a freak accident, is reborn as Myne, the daughter of a poor soldier, in a world where books are rare and expensive, and most people can not read at all.

High school sophomore Andromeda, an outcast because she studies the occult and has a hearing impairment and other disabilities, overcomes grief over terrible losses by enlisting others' help in her plan to save library books--and finds a kindred spirit along the way.

Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.