When Woodrow’s mother suddenly disappears, he moves to his grandparents’ home in a small Virginia town where he befriends his cousin, and together they find the strength to face the terrible losses and fears in their lives.

Tabitha’s parents send her on a hiking trip with her cousins, but even though Tabitha is not much of a hiker and she is almost certain that her cousins do not like her, the trip gives Tabitha the chance to prove her courage, to her cousins and to herself.

When Margie’s cousin Lupe comes from Mexico to live in California with Margie’s family, Lupe must adapt to America, while Margie, who thought it would be fun to have her cousin there, finds that she is embarrassed by her in school and jealous of her at home.

As the daughter of biracial parents, fourteen-year-old Staggerlee already feels like an outsider in her largely African-American community, and a summer with her cousin Trout during which both girls question their sexuality, allows Stagerlee to think about the type of person she can become.

To get away from her pregnant stepmother in New York City, fifteen-year-old Daisy goes to England to stay with her aunt and cousins, with whom she instantly bonds, but soon war breaks out and rips apart the family while devastating the land.

When Ted and Kat’s cousin Salim disappears from the London Eye Ferris wheel, the two siblings must work together–Ted with his brain that is “wired differently” and impatient Kat–to try to solve the mystery of what happened to Salim.

Sixteen-year-old Danny searches for his identity amidst the confusion of being half-Mexican and half-white while spending a summer with his cousin and new friends on the baseball fields and back alleys of San Diego County, California.

While spending the summer with Aunt Ursa and her fourteen-year-old cousin Foley, twelve-year-old Nell is happy to be in the company of her cousin and his friend Slade until they ask her to hide a pistol in her old doll house.

Fifteen-year-old Marne is excited to be able to spend her summer vacation in Hawaii, not realizing the change in her lifestyle it would bring staying with her aunt, seven cousins, and uncle who is a Chasidic rabbi.

Explains what cousins are and how they fit in to the family unit.