As her grandmother taught her, Magdalena continues to protect the sea turtles that nest near her home even after Grandma's death.

Agoraphobic Em Moore is the writing half of a biography team. Her partner, Teddy, does the schmoozing. When Teddy dies, Em is devastated, alone in a world she doesn't understand. The only way she can honor his memory is to finish their current book, an 'autobiography' of director Garrett Malcolm. She finds Malcolm friendlier and far sexier than she had imagined. But Em senses trouble between Malcolm and one of his former stars, and she hears whispers...

A boy grieves for his dead pet Mousie, helps to bury him, and begins to come to terms with his loss.

"By the award-winning author of A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, Strange Hotel is a book about grief, travel, and female loneliness narrated by an unnamed middle-aged woman from a series of hotel rooms around the world"--

Fifth-grader Cally Louise Fisher stops talking, partly because her father and brother never speak of her mother who died a year earlier, but visions of her mother, friendships with a homeless man and a disabled boy, and a huge dog ensure that she still communicates.

Starting to emerge from her shell in the months after devastating losses, Annie Lee takes piano lessons from an elderly mall pianist before his disappearance forces her to break a promise to a new friend.

When Laurel starts writing letters to dead people for a school assignment, she begins to spill about her sister's mysterious death, her mother's departure from the family, her new friends, and her first love.

After his mother explains why his classmate is not returning to school, she teaches Chester Raccoon how to make a memory.

Although Aunt Arlene tries to interest her in clothing and growing up, ten-year-old Mildred is entirely focused on growing a pumpkin big enough to win the annual Circleville, Ohio, contest, as her mother dreamed of doing before she died.

When teenaged Sarah dies in a sudden and puzzling accident, sending her two sisters into a tailspin of grief and confusion, Sarah wakes up in the afterlife and must piece together how she got there.