home
— A lightning bug carries the speaker's low spirit through gardens and town, returning it lit up and peaceful for a summer night's sleep.
— A cream-colored winter hat travels through a town, passing from person to person, each believing it's uniquely theirs until they discover it's just one of many mass-produced hats.
— A boy at boarding school writes to his father about missing their everyday rituals and recognizing the sacrifices his father makes driving long hours to work.
— Rain transforms from mist to downpour, its gray fingers reaching through fog and pine trees, as the speaker celebrates the wet beauty of their Pacific Northwest home.
— A Cuban-American boy finds solace and identity through a secret friendship with a bull after his grandmother's death, defying his assimilated family.
— A girl befriends her new neighbor Jessica, who gradually reveals manipulative behavior, steals a family heirloom, and drives a wedge between the narrator and her best friend.
— A girl who was found on a beach as a baby discovers through a magical conch shell that she was rescued by whales after her parents' ship capsized.
— A girl recalls summers at her family's Maine house, exploring tide pools and climbing Cannon Rock, where she collected sea glass and dreamed of becoming a marine biologist.
— A girl falls from a tree house in 1949 and awakens from a seventeen-year coma to find her family aged, her best friend married to her brother, and the boy...
— A girl picks a fight with her sister over blanket distribution, ignores her conscience, loses the argument she started, and learns to listen to that small inner voice.