Sharon Creech

When his father brings home an ailing, newborn donkey, Louie names the animal Winslow and takes care of him, but everyone, including Louie's quirky friend Nora, thinks Winslow is not going to survive.

After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother's route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also left. As Sal entertains her grandparents with Phoebe's outrageous story, her own story begins to unfold, the story of a thirteen-year-old girl whose only wish is to be reunited with her missing mother. Here the author weaves together two tales,...

In a tiny village in the Swiss Alps, an angel meets an American girl named Zola who has come with her father to open a school, and together Zola and the angel rescue a group of homeless orphans, who gradually change everything.

Thirteen-year-old Zinnia Taylor uncovers family secrets and self truths while clearing a mysterious overgrown trail that begins on her family's farm in Kentucky.

Twelve-year-old Annie ponders the many rhythms of life the year that her mother becomes pregnant, her grandfather begins faltering, and her best friend (and running partner) becomes distant.

"In the little town of Blackbird Tree live two orphan girls: one Naomi Deane, brimming with curiosity, and her best friend, Lizzie Scatterding, who could talk the ears off a cornfield. Naomi has a knack for being around when trouble happens. For she knows all the peculiar people in town--like Crazy Cora and Witch Wiggins and Mr. Farley. But then, one day, a boy drops out of a tree. The strangely charming Finn boy. Then the Dingle Dangle man appears,...

Thirteen-year-old Mary Lou grows up considerably during the summer while learning about romance, homesickness, death, and her cousin's search for his biological father.

Discovering a speech-disabled boy asleep on their porch, young couple John and Marta forge a loving bond with the child and come to think of him as their own while wondering about his mysterious past and enjoying the world through his eyes.

Two orphaned peasant children discover a mysterious pouch, the contents of which lead them to the majestic Castle Corona, where their lives may be transformed forever.

Nine-year-old Dennis, whose uncle and father died within a year of one another, is visited by the ghost of his uncle, and together they settle some unfinished business.