When Lion receives a postcard from a friend in Africa his homesickness is so deep that it's contagious, so he and four other animals escape the zoo and head for home.
After the death of his best friend, Elam reluctantly moves with his family to the desert, where he wrestles with homesickness, loneliness, grief, and the search for new friendship.
When a pioneer family moves west the mother misses home so much that she will not even name the new baby until her daughter thinks of just the right thing to cheer her up.
When her sister, star-athlete Jakarta, finally joins them, Dakar feels much safer and happier in Cottonwood, North Dakota, where she and their parents are living for a year, but she still longs for their home in Africa.
Initially excited about going to Camp Wickitawa with the rest of her class over spring vacation, fourth-grader Effie is horrified to discover that her bossy older sister is going to be a camp cook, and even worse, she unexpectedly becomes hopelessly homesick upon her arrival.
Charlie Keller has trouble feeling at home after his abolitionist father, wanting to cast a vote for freedom, moves his family from Massachusetts to the Kansas Territory which is on the verge of deciding whether to enter the Union as a free or a slave state.
While staying at her grandparents' farm until the birth of her mother's baby, homesick Betsy learns a lesson about independence when she witnesses the birth and migration of a gosling.
