Squirrel, a stray puppy, tells her life story, from her nurturing mother and brother to making her own way in the world, facing busy highways, changing seasons, and humans both gentle and brutal.

When a baby jackrabbit's home is destroyed by developers, she is cared for by a human family until she is big enough to live on her own in the wild.

Thirteen-year-old Gus, sent to live with his grandparents in Vermont while his mother recovers from tuberculosis and his father serves in the Army Air Corps during World War II, learns lessons about life, responsibility, and friendship while hatching and raising a brood of orphaned ducks, and getting to know and understand his neighbor Louise Lavictoire.