Horvath, Polly

Eleven-year-old Primrose living in a small fishing village in British Columbia recounts her experiences and all that she learns about human nature and the unpredictability of life in the months after her parents are lost at sea.

During the Depression, Gunther Grunt buys a new car with the money his wife has been saving to send their bright twelve-year-old daughter to college, beginning a chain of events that teaches the Grunts the value of their family.

Eleven-year-old Primrose, who lives in a small fishing village in British Columbia, recounts her experiences and all that she learns about human nature and the unpredictability of life in the months after her parents are lost at sea.

Thirteen-year-old Ratchet spends a summer in Maine with her eccentric great-aunts Tilly and Penpen, hearing strange stories from the past and encountering a variety of unusual and colorful characters.

Imogene is sent to visit her relatives in Iowa for the summer. From the moment she sees her cousins at the airport, Imogene knows the next eight weeks will be like nothing she could have imagined.

Eccentric Aunt Sally comes from Canada to babysit the Anderson children while their parents are on a trip to Paris and every night the bedtime story adds another piece to a very suspect family history.

Hortense worries that her family is falling apart, but as she gets to know her Aunt Kate and makes a new friend, she discovers that change isn't always bad.

Imogene did not expect to have as much excitement and fun as she did when she went to visit her four cousins in Iowa over the summer.

Although Ivy and her family welcome the Halibuts, and their son Alfred becomes her best friend, not all the townspeople are pleased to have circus people as neighbors, especially as other circus families move in.

When their parents are killed in a train accident, cousins Meline and Jocelyn, who have little in common, are sent to live with their wealthy, eccentric, and isolated Uncle Marten on his island off the coast of British Columbia, where they are soon joined by other oddly disconnected and troubled people.