vivid characters
— A Nevada girl becomes obsessed with capturing a wild palomino mustang, but when her father catches the mare for her birthday, she realizes the horse's spirit belongs to the mountains.
— A family celebrates every small victory by dancing the tango together, with even the dogs joining in, creating a ritual of shared joy.
— A young enslaved man flees through dark woods pursued by slave-catchers, finds what seems to be a safe house on the Underground Railroad, but is captured when the hiding place...
— A girl struggles with jealousy when her best friend moves away and writes about a new friend, then receives an unexpected gift that teaches her about friendship's capacity to expand.
— A grandmother tells her granddaughter how, as a six-year-old lost in a blizzard, she was saved after kissing a mezuzah on a stranger's door—where her future husband found her.
— A Korean boy moves to America to join his father but cannot speak English aloud until a chess game with his tutor breaks through his fear.
— A black cat survives a hit-and-run, loses her leg, and finds purpose when adopted by a mother seeking comfort for her son with cancer.
— In a Bedouin camp, a girl resents her father's new wife until she learns the woman cannot have children and was married out of compassion, not replacement.
— A girl loses her beloved tiger Beanie Baby at the beach, and the story alternates between her grief and the stuffed animal's ocean adventure before their reunion.
— In 1850, a sixteen-year-old girl who dreams of more than housework meets a stranger who takes her poetry to a printing press, changing her life forever.