"Thirteen-year-old Eli likes baggy clothes, baseball caps, and one girl in particular. Her seventeen-year-old sister Anna is more traditionally feminine; she loves boys and staying out late. They are sisters ... Their dad has long been out of the picture, and their mom lives at the mercy of her next drink. When their mom lands herself in enforced rehab, Anna and Eli are left to fend for themselves. Eli and Anna have each gotten used to telling lies...

Having reached the mature age of eleven in the tiny California town of Hard Pan (population 43), Lucky discovers that there is still much to learn about friendship, parental trust, and the Milky Way galaxy.

"When eleven-year-old Sol arrives at the Ash House, desperate for a cure for his complex pain syndrome, he finds a community of strange children long abandoned by their mysterious Headmaster. The children at the Ash House want the new boy to love their home as much as they do. They give him a name like theirs. They show him the dorms and tell him about the wonderful oasis that the Headmaster has created for them. But the new boy already has a name....

Twelve-year-old Natalia Rose Baleine Gallagher dreams of seeing whales on the beach near her new home, and is consumed with the prospect that her mother who abandoned her as a child loves and misses her, and wants Nat to find her.

Lost at sea while sailing with his wealthy owners, a Yorkshire terrier washes up, nearly dead, in a village on Prince Edward Island where he is nursed back to health by a lonely widow and is befriended by a fox and an abandoned waif who is also struggling to find a home for herself somewhere.

One month after their parents' disappearance, the third-grade Huit octuplets deal with a malfunctioning refrigerator and try to win the love of the only boy in their class at Valentine's Day, while Dorinda discovers her special power and gift.

Evacuated to a remote Yorkshire valley during World War II, a homesick ten-year-old English girl discovers an abandoned baby and befriends a gypsy boy, despite local prejudice.