After a fire destroys the farm where he was born, a young border collie acquires a series of owners and learns about life as he seeks a home and longs to fulfill his life's purpose of shepherding sheep. Finally, he arrives at the Good Shepherd Home for Boys, where he finds a friend in Luke, who is also alone in the world and looking for a home.

Hoping to stop his parents' impending separation and keep them from getting a divorce, eleven-year-old Charlie runs away from their house in the California countryside and finds a ride to the coast.

A dog whose beloved owner has died and an orphaned ten-year-old girl find each other while enduring poverty and homelessness in early-twentieth-century Boston.

While vacationing in the country, eleven-year-old Toby, a cancer patient, learns some important lessons about living and dying from an elderly poet and her cow.