Follows the efforts of twelve-year-old Reena, who has recently moved to rural Maine, to adjust to a new environment while unexpectedly bonding with an ornery cow.

It is 1904 and the partially deaf Asta Hedstrom is engaged to Nils, but she does not want to marry him: she would rather spend her time with her best friend Gunnar Fuglestad and his secret boyfriend, Erlend, who belongs to the wealthiest family on their Norwegian island; so when Nils gravely injures Gunnar, she shuns her marriage and moves in with Gunnar and Erlend in a secluded cabin above town--and the three misfits set out to win the annual Christmas...

Relates the adventures of a country doll made of an apple-wood twig with a hickory nut for a head.

The author used to live in the busy city where there were buses and trains, and people waiting for buses and trains. Now he lives in the country and jubilantly takes us on a tour of his home, pointing out all the animals that share his space.

On a short winter day, Samuel and his father enter into a series of trades with neighbors and strangers until they come home with a brown-eyed milk cow for Mama.

Dear Libby, It occurs to me that you and your two children have been living with your mother for-Dear Lord!-two whole years, and I'm writing to see if you'd like to be rescued. The letter comes out of the blue, and just in time for Libby Moran, who-after the sudden death of her husband, Danny-went to stay with her hypercritical mother. Now her crazy Aunt Jean has offered Libby an escape: a job and a place to live on her farm in the Texas Hill Country....

Unable to sleep on the night of a full moon, a young boy follows the sound of music across the fields and finds an unusual barn dance in progress.

A boy recounts his annual summer trips to rural Illinois with his sister during the Great Depression to visit their larger-than-life grandmother.

Katy Mouse teaches her younger brother, Tiny, the names of some of the things they see, including a boot, a snail, and a pheasant, when they go to the cornfield to play games.

In the year before they become the orphans known as the Boxcar children, Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny Alden live with their parents at Fair Meadow Farm, where, although times are hard, they take in a family who has been stranded in their car during a blizzard.