All the fruits gather together and enjoy a rhyming party, but poor Orange feels left out because he does not rhyme with anything--until Apple invents a new word.

James Trotter loses his parents in a horrible accident and is forced to live-miserably-with his two wicked aunts. Then James is given some magic crystals that give him hope. But when he accidentally spills these crystals on an old peach tree, strange things begin to happen. A peach starts to grow and grow until James is able to climb inside and escape his awful aunts! And through this adventure, he makes some interesting friends, including Grasshopper,...

Valancy Stirling, an inhibited twenty-nine-year-old spinster, undergoes a total personality change when a doctor tells her she has no more than one year to live. Oppressed by family and small-town prejudice, her apparently imminent death gives her the courage to assert herself and seek love.

Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy know that an angel's work is never done, especially during a time as wondrous as New Year's Eve. With an apprentice angel, Will, under their wings, they descend upon Times Square in New York City eager to join in the festivities. And when Will spies two lonely strangers in the crowd, he decides midnight is the perfect time to lend a heavenly helping hand. Lucie Farrara and Aren Fairchild meet after bumping into each other--seemingly...

A wandering cat brightens the lives of six lonely people--and persuades all of them to feed him until a near accident brings them all together.

When popular Lizzie Lovett goes missing, seventeen-year-old Hawthorne, a lonely misfit, finds herself becoming obsessed with solving the mystery.

Arriving on the American prairie in the hope of making a new home, Nora, a little girl from Russia, struggles with loneliness until Papa brings her a dozen chicks and two geese who follow Nora everywhere she goes

Bess is feeling terribly lonely when out of the sky tumbles a bird named Bella, her tiny suitcases packed with all manner of wonderful things.

A masterful collection of stories that plumb the depths of everyday life to reveal the shifting tides and hidden undercurrents of ordinary relationships. In each of these twelve stories, small events have huge consequences.