Everything in high school is like the world ending and Sadie Mitchell's crippling fear of the coming apocalypse is the heightened version of that. Undeterred by the naysayers, Sadie has two weeks to ready herself before doomsday. She needs to master survivalist cuisine, learn to sew, but there are other things...personal things: go to a high school party, kiss a boy, and most importantly, get her best friend back.

Sixteen-year-old Zoey Stevens, a skilled dancer and straight-A student, is having a hard time adjusting to a new high school, a new and klutzy dance squad, a new step-dad, three new rowdy step-brothers and an unruly dog, but things change when a dog training app on her smart phone begins to somehow control all the boys around her.

The Thomsons - parents Thomas and Francie, and children Willa, Arthur, Beatrice (nicknamed Booky) and Jakey - are a loving working class family living in Depression era Toronto. In the lead up to Christmas, Thomas loses his job as a harness maker for the Eaton's company as the company is moving into the motorized age in an effort to keep up with the times; Eaton's is facing as challenging a time as any business during the Depression. Thomas' job prospects in this changing time are not good. Ironically, Eaton's has a Christmas Fund where each child in the city whose father is not working is eligible for a Christmas gift from the company. Because of the Thomson's new situation, Booky risks losing her best friend Laura Westover, whose snobbish and social climbing mother wants her daughter to associate with a higher class of friend. By happenstance, Booky befriends Mr...