Family members lovingly prepare for arrival of a new baby. Spanish words are woven throughout the text.

A slave family is distressed when they discover their son Ben has run away.

Ana moved to New Jersey from Argentina for her Junior year of high school. She's a poet and a lover of language-- except that now, she can barely understand what's going on around her, let alone find the words to express how she feels in the language she's expected to speak. Then she meets Harrison, the very cute, very American boy in her math class. And then there's her new friend Neo, the Greek boy she's partnered up with in ESL class, who she bonds...

While sorting through difficulties in her friendship with her neighbor Margaret, eight-year-old Clementine gains several unique hairstyles while also helping her father in his efforts to banish pigeons from the front of their apartment building.