Ten-year-old Grace is crushed to learn that her grandparents' bakery might close after thirty years and wonders how her own business, which they inspired, can survive if theirs cannot, but she and her friends use their talents and newly-acquired business skills to try to save the day.

Twelve-year-old Sophie is excited to have the opportunity to audition for a television commercial until she learns the company is Beatrice's Brownies, the biggest competitor to her best friend's family's cupcake shop. Includes recipes for chocolate treats.

When they have to take on the donkey's load to get to the fair, the tailor, baker, and shoemaker all learn to be tolerant of the other fellow's point of view.

"Spring has sprung in River Heights, along with a brand-new cupcake café! The Lucky Ladybug, run by twin bakers and celebrities Gwendolyn and Carolyn Porter, is the talk of the town. Nancy, Bess, and George can't wait to taste some of the delicious cupcakes! But on the day of the opening, the ceremony--and the cupcakes--are ruined by hundreds of live ladybugs that invade the store. It's up to Nancy and the Clue Crew to get to the bottom of this cupcake...

Aurora County, Mississippi, is only the latest stop on the Cakes' nomadic lifestyle, opening bakeries wherever they go; but Emma Alabama Lane Cake (only girl of the six Cake children) is sick of it, and determined not to form any friendships here because they will just disappear as soon as the family moves again--but Aurora County has other ideas, and so does a girl named Ruby Lavender who plans to teach Emma a thing or two about friendship.

Wilma Sue is wary of the eccentric sisters, Ruth and Naomi, at her new foster home, but wonders if she might have a true home with them, baking and delivering cakes and tending their chickens, until she is implicated in a series of neighborhood crimes.

Exploding with loud, rock 'n' roll attitude, eleven-year-old Jack Fineman dreams of becoming the greatest pastry chef who ever lived. His plans are thrown off course when his butterscotch basil brownies are upstaged at his sixth-grade holiday party by a simple plate of chocolate rugelach brought in by Jillian Mermelstein-the new girl at school whose mother has just died and who only wants to be left alone. These budding bakers' lives are mixed together...