Living with her uncle's family on a southern plantation in the mid-nineteenth century, motherless eight-year-old Elsie finds it difficult to establish a relationship with her worldly father who seems indifferent to her religious principles.

Abandoned by their mother, four children begin a search for a home and an identity.

Since his mother's death, Jayson, twelve, has focused on basketball and surviving but he is found out and placed with an affluent foster family of a different race, and must learn to accept many changes, including facing his former teammates in a championship game.

"As Elsie Dinsmore grows up and becomes a young woman, her family undergoes major changes. Her father, Horace Dinsmore, falls in love and marries sweet Rose Allison, whom Elsie has loved since childhood. Soon two new members-Horace, Jr., and Rosebud-join the happy family. Elsie spends a summer with her eccentric Aunt Wealthy and experiences the joy of first love and the deep pain of betrayal. In an attempt to cure her broken heart, Elsie's family...

Elsie and Edward marry and take over her inherited estate in the Louisiana Bayou, where they struggle to raise four children in a country on the brink of civil war.

"Despite her parents' divorce, her father's coming out as gay, and his plans to marry his boyfriend, ten-year-old Bea is reassured by her parents' unconditional love, excited about getting a stepsister, and haunted by something she did last summer at her father's lake house"--Title verso page.

"Alix and her older sister, Jools, have never been to the ocean. When their parents take them to spend a week by the shore, Alix is nervous about leaving home--but excited, too. At the beach, the sisters make friends, go exploring, and have adventures big and small"--

While vacationing with their widowed father in the Berkshire Mountains, four lovable sisters, ages four through twelve, share adventures with a local boy, much to the dismay of his snobbish mother.

Tiger, sixteen, has been pushing away from her overprotective mother, but when her mother dies suddenly Tiger must learn to live when it feels she is surrounded by darkness. It's always been Tiger and her mother against the world. And sometimes Tiger has been pushing away from her mother's over-protectiveness. Then, on a day like any other, her mother dies--and now Tiger is alone. To her it feels like it's the brightest day of summer, but it's dark...

Nine-year-old. Calvin catches the attention of the school bully on the day before he starts fourth grade, while at home, the unfriendly, fifteen-year-old daughter of his mother's best friend has taken over his room.