Gay Uncle Patrick (GUP, for short), has always loved his niece, Maisie, and nephew, Grant. He loves spending time with them when they come out to Palm Springs for weeklong visits, When Maisie and Grant lose their mother and Patrick's brother has a health crisis of his own, Patrick finds himself suddenly taking on the role of primary guardian. Despite having a set of "Guncle Rules" Patrick has no idea what to expect. After years barely holding on after...

Dot waitresses on roller skates at the Dairy Bob, doesn't care for smoking at least partly on account of her dad having never returned from a cigarette run, and carries on the family tradition of philosophizing. Life hasn't done her any favors in her seventeen years so far. But if there was ever a heroine built for turning things upside down and seeing what shakes out, it's Dot. Determined to find out who she is and why she's the way she is, an opportunity...

Abby and Peter are staying with their Uncle Jonathan, who knows a lot about Egypt and whose living room bears some resemblance to an ancient tomb.

In 1877, in an enchantment shop on the last of the Faerie roads linking New York City to the Land of the Fey, just after twelve-year-old Oona opts to relinquish her apprenticeship to her uncle, the Wizard, and become a detective, her uncle is stabbed, testing her skills.

Timothy Warner, a PhD student who goes by the nickname "Moth," wakes up on his ninety-ninth day of sobriety with an intense craving for drink. He asks his uncle Ed, a former alcoholic and now successful psychiatrist, to meet him at an AA meeting later that day. When Ed doesn't show up, Moth bikes to his office and discovers a grisly scene -- his uncle lying in a pool of blood, shot through the temple. The police pronounce the death a suicide, but...

Thirteen-year-old Juan's summer is off to a terrible start. First, his parents separate. Then, almost as bad, Juan is sent away to his strange Uncle Tito's house for the entire break! Who wants to live with an oddball recluse who has zigzag eyebrows, drinks fifteen cups of smoky tea a day, and lives inside a huge, mysterious library? As Juan adjusts to his new life among teetering, dusty shelves, he notices something odd: the books move on their own!...

Uncle Pig is babysitting his niece and nephews for the first time and he has no idea how to keep them from turning his home into a total wreck--and when he takes them outside the chaos continues.

Twins Grace and Marty, along with a mysterious uncle, are dropped into the middle of the Congolese jungle in search of their missing photojournalist parents.

His mother left three years ago, so when twelve-year-old Flip's thieving father dies he goes to live with his stern and hostile uncle on the remote Dutch island of Mossum; there he works on the farm, dreams of his mother coming to get him, deals with the local bullies, and his only "friend' is a strange, mute girl whom he thinks of as the ghost girl--until he rescues a horse from the stormy sea and discovers a new purpose in caring for his charge....