Fearing that her legal guardian plans to abandon her to return to France, ten-year-old aspiring scientist Lucky Trimble determines to run away while also continuing to seek the Higher Power that will bring stability to her life.

"Coo, a ten-year-old girl raised by a flock of pigeons, delights in finally making human contact, but quickly learns that our world is more cruel and complicated than she could have guessed"--

While living with her Gram in Vermont, eleven-year-old Aubrey writes letters as a way of dealing with losing her father and sister in a car accident, and then being abandoned by her grief-stricken mother.

Having reached the mature age of eleven in the tiny California town of Hard Pan (population 43), Lucky discovers that there is still much to learn about friendship, parental trust, and the Milky Way galaxy.

"Seventeen-year-old Lucille is struggling to get through each day, paying bills and looking after her little sister, Wren, while her father is institutionalized after a breakdown and her mother is "on vacation," but nothing else seems to matter when she is with Digby Jones, her best friend's twin brother." --

After twelve-year-old Annika, a foundling living in late nineteenth-century Vienna, inherits a trunk of costume jewelry, a woman claiming to be her aristocratic mother arrives and takes her to live in a strangely decrepit mansion in Germany.

With the arrival of August, Zinnia, the youngest of the Huit octuplets, eagerly anticipates getting her power and gift, both of which hold big surprises that are revealed to the sisters on their eighth birthday.

When Rebecca demonstrates superhuman strength she brings unwanted publicity to the Huit octuplets, but much greater danger is in store when she acquires the power to shoot fire from her fingertips.

"When eleven-year-old Sol arrives at the Ash House, desperate for a cure for his complex pain syndrome, he finds a community of strange children long abandoned by their mysterious Headmaster. The children at the Ash House want the new boy to love their home as much as they do. They give him a name like theirs. They show him the dorms and tell him about the wonderful oasis that the Headmaster has created for them. But the new boy already has a name....

Told from three viewpoints, a brisk historical tale follows the experiences of two sisters who discover an abandoned baby on the library steps, while their estranged friend, racing to complete an important errand for his World War II soldier brother, jumps to the wrong conclusion. --