Comfort Snowberger is well acquainted with death since her family runs the funeral parlor in their small southern town, but even so the ten-year-old is unprepared for the series of heart-wrenching events that begins on the first day of Easter vacation with the sudden death of her beloved great-uncle Edisto.

When her grandmother, a devoted gardener, dies, a little girl inherits her gardening gloves and feels closer to her memory.

After his father's death, seventh-grader Sam West is whisked from Louisiana to Oklahoma, where he discovers a mysterious tree trunk that leads to a world where Pa is still alive.

"An ordinary day in an ordinary neighborhood turns out to be extraordinary in this story about new life, death, and family"--

While looking for chestnuts in the woods, Ricky finds a squirrel lying on the ground. Is he sleeping? Or is he ill? Ricky's mother and father know the answer.

Transformed by the goddess Yemoja into a Mami Wati, an African mermaid charged with collecting the souls of those who die at sea, Simi goes against the gods to save a living boy, Kola, from drowning.

Although devastated when his pet dog dies, a young boy goes trick-or-treating and receives a timely visit from an old friend during a scary encounter with graveyard skeletons.

Following a family tradition, Grandpa gives Emilia a walnut and together they plant and care for it, but as her little nut grows into a tree, Grandpa begins to slow down, until one sad day Emilia has to say goodbye.

A cat whose kitten days are far behind her says goodbye to her human family, and the animals and places that have made her life special, before leaving this life behind.

When Santino witnesses his father and grandfather's murders by the Mafia, he must make the difficult decision whether to cooperate with the police and be a "rat" or maintain the code of silence.