Seventh-grader John "Crash" Coogan has always been comfortable with his tough, aggressive behavior, until his relationship with an unusual Quaker boy and his grandfather's stroke make him consider the meaning of friendship and the importance of family.

The two weeks before Christmas are filled with activity as Samantha finishes her homemade presents and makes preparations for visiting relatives.

Times are tough around the little brown house! The widowed Mrs. Pepper has to sew all day long just to earn enough to pay the rent and to feed the five growing Peppers. But she faces poverty and trouble with a stout heart, a smiling face, and the help of her jolly brood: blue-eyed Ben, the eldest and the man of the house at the age of 11; pretty Polly, so eager to cook for the family and make everyone happy and comfortable; and the three littlest...

Mourning the loss of his mother, nine-year-old David forms an unlikely friendship with independent, quirky thirteen-year-old Primrose, as the two help each other deal with what is missing in their lives.

Follows the adventures and misadventures of ten-year-old Jane Moffat living with her widowed mother and three siblings in their new home in Cranbury, Connecticut, in the early twentieth century.

"Ramona's at the awkward, in-between age--too little to stay home alone after school when her mother is at work, but too big to enjoy playing with pesty Willa Jean at her sister's house. These days, all Ramona really wants is to twitch her nose and be her mother's little rabbit like she once was. Can't she be her mother's little girl forever?"--Back cover.

Arthur panics when he is called to the principal's office and given a large envelope marked "private and confidential" to take home to his mother, and though he cannot think what he has done wrong, he knows he must be in terrible trouble.

This adaptation of the original story follows the activities of seven children in nineteenth-century New England as they prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday while Mother is away caring for Grandmother.

In her fictionalized journal, eleven-year-old Minnie Swift recounts how her family dealt with the difficult times during the Depression and how the arrival of an orphan from Texas changed their lives in Indianapolis just before Christmas 1932.

"The laughs continue when Fido, the guinea pig that thinks she's a dog, has a pup that thinks she's a squirrel. A sequel to "Guinea Dog."