A popular advice columnist for 40 years, Wendy Wise decides to meddle in her own troubled daughters' lives even though they are holding on some resentments from childhood, while her daughters discover that Wendy has been hiding more than a few problems of her own. As the three women confront the disappointments and heartaches that have accumulated among them over the years, they discover that while the future may look entirely different from the one...

Ten-year-old Sprig no longer gets along with her twelve-year-old sister, Dakota, but the two pull together during their father's extended business trip to Afghanistan, sharing concerns about his safety, an elderly neighbor's health, fights with their best friends, and boys.

In the Chinese Year of the Rat, a young Taiwanese American girl faces many challenges: her best friend moves to California and a new boy comes to her school, she must find the courage to forge ahead with her dream of becoming a writer and illustrator, and she must learn to find the beauty in change.

At the end of the nineteenth century, nine-year-old Almanzo lives with his family on a big farm in New York State where he raises his own two calves, helps cut ice and shear sheep, and longs for the day he can have his own colt.