The author remembers the summer when she was ten years old and staying with her father in Michigan where she took riding lessons and became best friends with a perfect horse.
Naomi, an Amish girl whose elders have impressed upon her the importance of adhering to the simple ways of her people, is horrified when one of her hen eggs hatches into an extremely fancy bird.
Welcome Comfort, a lonely foster child, is assured by his friend the school custodian that there is a Santa Claus, but he does not discover the truth until one wondrous and surprising Christmas Eve.
Inspired by a teacher who believes each of them is a genius, a class of special-needs students invents something that could convince the whole school they are justifiably proud to be "Junkyard Wonders.".
During the Depression, a young Memphis boy trains his pet duck to do tricks in the fountain of a grand hotel and ends up becoming the Duck Master of the Peabody Hotel.
A long-lasting friendship develops between Larnel, a young African-American and Mrs. Katz, a lonely, Jewish, widow, when Larnel gives Mrs. Katz a scrawny kitten without a tail.
