When Lance, a very pretentious turkey, arrives on the farm and boasts that he is the only bird invited to a special feast, no hen is impressed, but when Beauty learns that Lance is the main course, she convinces the others to save him.
Sixteen-year-old Margaret Rose Nolan, newly arrived from Ireland, finds work at New York City's Triangle Shirtwaist Factory shortly before the 1911 fire in which 146 employees died.
Branded the class loser, twelve-year-old Basil reluctantly becomes friends with a bossy new girl who, like Basil, has synesthesia and comes to Basil's aid when his estranged mother returns and turns his life upside down.
After a daring escape from the animal shelter, Pearl, Peppy, and K-10--so named because he is one step above all the other canines--explore the outside world while moving from one adventure to another.
After losing his hand in an accident in his father's butcher shop in 1946, sixth-grader Norman uses hard work and humor to learn to live with his disability and to succeed at baseball, art, and other activities.