A year after her mother has deserted the family, eleven-year-old Shelby goes to stay with her, deep in the Louisiana bayou, where they both confront old hurts and regrets.
After bidding goodbye to her friends Michael and Nicole, who are moving away, Piper and her sisters spend winter break with their two sets of grandparents in Piney Woods, Louisiana, where Piper learns that the best adventures are the unexpected ones.
Forgetting his mother's warnings, Epossumondas goes into the swamp alone then must pretend to be dead time and again as he hears frightening sounds and fears they are being made by the dreaded loup garou.
In this variation on the folktale, Sody Salyraytus, each of Epossumondas's birthday guests disappears until it is finally up to him to rescue them all and bring home the "sody" for his birthday biscuits.
In a small Louisiana mill town in 1940, Jolene does not want her Momma to marry the logger who is courting her, but it seems that even her most defiantly bad behavior cannot make him go away.
Even though Feliciana is her grandfather's favorite, he refuses to allow her to go alligator hunting with him, so one night she sneaks out and surreptitiously joins the hunt anyway.
