After eleven-year-old Carolina begins to make decisions for herself and no longer feels constrained by her mother, she is able to let her pet crow fly free.
During a summer visit, twelve-year-old Lucy must come to terms with both her grandmother's failing memory and how her mentally-challenged neighbor will impact her popularity when both enter the same middle school in the fall.
After a fire destroys the farm where he was born, a young border collie acquires a series of owners and learns about life as he seeks a home and longs to fulfill his life's purpose of shepherding sheep.