Seventeen-year-old Sugar Magnolia Dempsey is tired of leaving friends behind every time her hippie parents decide to move, but her plan to be unpopular at her new Austin, Texas, school backfires when other students join her on the path to "supreme dorkdom."

In rural Texas in 1901, thirteen-year-old Callie nurses a butterfly with a broken wing and delivers a baby lamb, despite her mother's disapproval of Callie's "unladylike behavior."

The Summer Olympics inspires Kylie Jean Carter to take gymnastics lessons, but even better than that is making a new friend, Abby, who is deaf, and starting to learn sign language.

Calpurnia and her grandfather rescue a barn owl from the river and, with the help of Dr. Pritzker, dead mice, and some detective work, nurse it back to health.

December comes to Texas and there is a catfish fishing contest at Arrowhead Lake with a special prize awaiting the winning adult/child team; Kylie's brother and father are entered as one team, and Kylie Jean convinces her grandfather to enter with her as another team--and Kylie dreams of catching Granddaddy Whiskers, a legendary blue catfish that has eluded fishermen for years.