In 1878, twelve-year-old Ida Kate and her widowed father welcome a mail-order bride and her baby to their Kansas homestead, but Ida Kate soon suspects that the bride is not the woman with whom Papa has corresponded.

Upon learning that her deceased mother, an artist, went through a "Purple Period," ten-year-old Noonie decides to do the same, hoping that this will bring her archaeologist father home to see her win a school art contest and that the aunt, uncle, and cousin she lives with will come to understand her just a little.

In the late 1940s, twelve-year-old Gussie, a minister's daughter, learns the definition of integrity while helping with a celebration at the Alabama School for the Deaf--her punishment for misdeeds against her deaf parents and their boarders.

In 1930s Alabama, twelve-year-old Hoodoo Hatcher is the only member of his family who seems unable to practice folk magic, but when a mysterious man called the Stranger puts the entire town at risk from his black magic, Hoodoo must learn to conjure to defeat him.

In 1914, fourteen-year-old Felix LeBlanc feels stifled by life on his family's farm in Louisiana and after hearing his wayward uncle play the fiddle, Felix decides that he wants to be a fiddler too, even if it means making his own fiddle and going against his parents' wishes.

Thirteen-year-old Desi Bascomb is in over her head with school and landing the role of Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and while her job as a substitute princess is more glamorous than ever, a secret she learns about Facade's magic could make everything simpler--or more complicated.

Fifteen-year-old Ben's mother would like him to follow his best friend, Tanner, and join Chief Master Lisa Kleisch's tae kwon do studio, but Ben is loyal to his long-time instructor, Mr. Ronson; besides he really does not like what he sees of Lisa Kleisch's joyless technique--and when Tanner admits that he hates it at the new dojang, Ben is more determined than ever to prove that he can win with Mr. Ronson.

At first dismayed at having to spend the last month of her summer vacation helping out in the household of recently widowed Mrs. Hata, Rinko discovers there are pleasant surprises for her, but then bad things start to happen. Sequel to "A Jar of Dreams."

When seventy-five-year-old Henny Hickathrift runs away from the old people's home, she meets five children and their parents who welcome her into their family.

Worried about the difficulties on his family's Massachusetts dairy farm, twelve-year-old JJ is willing to give up on his dreams of becoming a great clarinet player and on his friendship with a new Jewish classmate who shares his love of music.