Patricia MacLachlan

A dog with unusual communication talents loses his poet owner before rescuing two children trapped in a snowstorm and leading them to the poet's cabin, where the children explore the memories that the poet has left behind.

When a drought tests the commitment of a mail-order bride from Maine to her new home on the prairie, her stepchildren hope they will be able to remain a family.

In the year before they become the orphans known as the Boxcar children, Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny Alden live with their parents at Fair Meadow Farm, where, although times are hard, they take in a family who has been stranded in their car during a blizzard.

Eight-year-old Cassie Witting is upset when she finds out that her mother, Sarah, is expecting a baby, but writing in the journal that belonged to her brother Caleb helps her sort out her feelings and understand that Sarah will always love her.

A young boy describes the favorite places that he shares with his family on his grandparents' farm and in the nearby countryside.

As a family prepares to move away from their farm, the daughter reflects on all the things she loves there so that when her baby brother is older she can tell him what it was like.