Emily moves with her family from Chicago to the country where she is drawn to a mysterious playhouse she finds in the woods, and it is not long before she meets the painted house's sad, lonely inhabitant.
When his best friend drowns while they are both swimming in a treacherous river that they had promised never to go near, Joel is devastated and terrified at having to tell both sets of parents the terrible consequences of their disobedience.
A boy, a dog, & an old man are lonely before the boy plans a rally, the dog looks for a boy, & all the townspeople help the old man when lightning strikes his home.
On a bike outing to the abandoned houses by the old cement mill, Delsie and her friend Todd discover one of the houses is not empty--and a ghost dog haunts the area.
Turtle talks to different animals about the coming winter, trying to find a dream that will fit her and prepare her for the long cold season of darkness.
In Anchorage, Alaska, two lonely boys make a connection--a brown bear injured just after his mother sends him out on his own, and a human whose father is a new keeper at the Alaska Zoo and whose mother and sister are still in Minnesota.
While visiting her grandmother's log cabin, Liz encounters the ghost of her great-great-great grandmother and suddenly finds that she has been transported back in time.
