Sarah Weeks

After spending her life with her mentally retarded mother and agoraphobic neighbor, twelve-year-old Heidi sets out from Reno, Nevada, to New York to find out who she is. Living with her mentally disabled mother who only knows just over twenty words, young Heidi has learned to live in her special world until a new word is suddenly used and repeated by her mother; causing Heidi to think it might be a key to a secret past about which she knows so little....

A little girl pleads her innocence from her time-out chair by contrasting her behavior with that of wild and ferocious animals.

Different animals ask to join a fish in a tub until the tub is full.

After moving with his mother to a trailer park to care for an injured aunt, eleven-year-old Jamie Reardon struggles to cope with a deeply buried secret.

Pip Squeak the mouse is kept awake all night by the drips from his leaky roof.

A young penguin and his father receive comfort from each other as they wait for the mother penguin to return from her diving.

All her life Aurora has heard stories about how wonderful and lucky Heidi is, and soon this paragon (now grown up and expecting a baby) will be visiting; but before she arrives part of their house is damaged in a fire, and worse, Aurora's beloved dog disappears--and while her parents have always believed in "soof" (Heidi's mom's word for love), Aurora, who has never really fit in with children her own age, will just have to find her own soof.

When Sam the lamb has trouble sneezing, the other animals try to help.

A professor tries to assemble Frankenstein's body parts so that the monster can enjoy his birthday cake, with unexpected results.

Because he is so different from his eccentric parents, twelve-year-old Guy is convinced he has been switched at birth with a classmate whose parents seem more normal.