Kathi Appelt

An old hound that has been chained up at his hateful owner's run-down shack, and two kittens born underneath the house, endure separation, danger, and many other tribulations in their quest to be reunited and free.

In 1910, Zada the camel treks across the West Texas desert to save two baby kestrels from an approaching haboob, a mountain-sized storm. sharing adventures from her youth in Turkey to keep them calm.

The reader is invited to count hungry crows as they hunt for savory snacks.

On the night of the blue moon when mermaids are said to gather on a sandbar in the Gulf of Mexico, ten-year-old Keeper sets out in a small boat, with her dog BD and a seagull named Captain, determined to find her mother, a mermaid, as Keeper has always believed, who left long ago to return to the sea.

Young Jesse waits all summer for her watermelon to ripen.

Pigs dance the night away when a polka band plays at the annual hootenanny.

A mother explains to her child all the ways her love remains even while she's away.

A rambunctious puppy finds a home at the Ronald McDonald House, a place that houses sick children and their families while they undergo treatment.