Polacco, Patricia

When young Patricia's family moves to Battle Creek, Michigan, she finds it hard to believe this new place will ever feel like home. But soon she meets the kind librarian Mrs. Creavy and discovers the library's doors are always open. Now, Patricia has a place to explore and study books about the birds that she loves. Mrs. Creavy even introduces her to the books of John James Audubon and helps Patricia introduce her classmates to the joy of birds by becoming the first member of the Audubon Bird Club of Freemont Elementary.

When Patricia starts junior high, her awful older brother Richie makes her life miserable but after he teaches her to dance she sees that he is not so rotten after all.

When Patricia starts at a new school she quickly becomes fast friends with fellow outcasts Thom and Ravanne and together they find a way to silence the school bully and his toadies.

Grandma finds a way to dispel her grandchild's fear of thunderstorms.

A long-lasting friendship develops between Larnel, a young African-American, and Mrs. Katz, a lonely Jewish widow, when Larnel presents Mrs. Katz with a scrawny kitten without a tail.

The author remembers the summer when she was ten years old and staying with her father in Michigan where she took riding lessons and became best friends with a perfect horse.