Baby Owen's grandmother learns that he is wiggly, jiggly, and all-around giggly for bluegrass music, so with her banjo, she travels by curious means to visit and play for him.
Unhappy at home, a newborn baby packs up his blankey and other prized possessions, leaves the farm, and spends a year visiting and learning from bears, monkeys, sea lions, and other creatures.
During the summer that she turns nine, Mary Margaret tries very hard to persuade her parents to let her have a pet, makes a new neighbor friend and helps her brother keep an old one, and looks forward to the new baby's arrival because then her mother will be less "crabby.".
Nigel the cat and Julia the dog think they will have no use for the new baby in their house, but after awhile they realize that they have come to love her.
Quila and her father, living alone in a remote Maine lighthouse in the 1850's, find their lives profoundly changed when a baby washes ashore and they decide to keep her as part of their family.