When their father invites a mail-order bride to come live with them in their prairie home, Caleb and Anna are captivated by their new mother and hope that she will stay.

A sad and silent nine-year-old boy finds his voice when he moves next to a family that rescues dogs.

Barkus is a large and very clever dog, and Baby is a cat, and together their adventures make life exciting for seven-year-old Nicky and her family.

When Robbie spends the summer at his grandmother Maddy's house, he revels in his grandmother's easy, relaxed ways. Robbie has always felt as if something is missing in his life-his parents don't always act like they love him. Maddy helps him understand that an experience his mother had long ago is at the heart of the problem in his family. With this knowledge, Robbie finds the courage to try to make things right. This poignant story from beloved author...

A prairie wedding and then a funeral bring together extended family and friends in the fifth and final volume in the historical fiction series that started with the exquisite Newbery Medal Book Sarah Plain and Tall (1985). Once again, heartwarming is the word for the story, which is always true to a child's viewpoint. The narrator here is Sarah's daughter, Cassie, a fourth-grader in the prairie school of six pupils, and the core drama is the close,...

Eleven-year-old aspiring writer Louisa considers traveling the world with her globetrotting parents, but friendship with George helps her to see her grandparents' farm on Deer Island in a new light.

It's not fair, Emma thinks, for her parents to go away (for five whole days) and leave her with an aunt and uncle she hardly knows. What if they don't like children? But Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Eliot like Emma and her brother, Zachary, just fine. They also like rules. Rules about: Eating. Sleeping. Cleaning up. Messing up. Emma doesn't believe in rules. Not unless they're hers: Eating no broccoli, dead or alive. Sleeping: No sleeping in a room where...

A dog with unusual communication talents loses his poet owner before rescuing two children trapped in a snowstorm and leading them to the poet's cabin, where the children explore the memories that the poet has left behind.

As Emma grieves the loss of her grandfather, she reflects on their shared love of birdwatching.

After her grandfather's death, Cassie longs for an orderliness to life -'a pattern' - that doesn't exist among her raucous, loving family. But during an eventful summer by the sea, she begins to learn that some things do not stay the same forever.