Arthur Rackham's 1905 illustrations highlight the story of Rip Van Winkle, an eighteenth-century Catskill Mountains man with an aversion to profitable labor, who falls asleep for twenty years and awakens to a very different village.
A troublesome twelve-year-old orphan, staying with an elderly artist who needs her, remembers the only other time she was happy in a foster home, with a family that truly seemed to care about her.
When her father accepts a job as girls' basketball coach in another town, fifth-grader Laurie reluctantly leaves old friends and teammates and faces new challenges with a new basketball team at a new school.
When Laurie, a basketball hotshot, reluctantly tries out for the middle school softball team, she is surprised to find that she enjoys the game but afraid that everyone will expect too much of her.
