Illustrations and rhyming text portray the birthday party of a beloved baby.

A young girl finds a way to tame the winds besieging an old man who lives on a hill above her village.

One dark bird is perched up high, with a view of the town and a taste of the sky. Then she’s joined by two more, then three, then four. Before long, there are hundreds of starlings dancing across the sky—and avoiding a hunting hawk with one of the most spectacular tricks in the animal kingdom. Then, when night comes, the starlings begin to depart, until finally there is just one dark bird perched way up high, with a view of the town and a taste...

In a series of letters a student laments the absence of her teacher and daily routine, but she soon realizes there are benefits to mixing things up, and that perhaps having a substitue teacher is not so bad afterall.

A girl uses her imagination to turn an ordinary box into a sailboat.

"Once in your life, sometime after your first memory but before you can drive a car, something is going to happen to you that doesn't happen to anyone else you know. It might be something good. It might be something bad, or special, or funny, or shocking. For Millie, it's something really sad. Lolo, her neighbors' infant daughter, dies--unexpectedly, suddenly, inexplicably--on the night Millie babysits. There's nothing she could have done. There's...

"When a young boy gets a cold, he just wants his mommy. But his stuffy nose makes it difficult for him to call out to his mom--not 'Bob,' who happens to be the family dog"--