Dear Mom and Pop, Two days ago we all spent the afternoon in palm trees. One of the village dogs broke his leash and treed the whole community. The dog is mean, but I have managed to form a cautious relationship with him by feeding him scraps from our table, and jelly beans … I hope candy doesn't hurt a dog; it hasn't hurt this dog, I can assure you. I know you're wondering about Sam … I love him with all my heart, but sometimes love isn't enough....

"English anthropologist Andrew Banson has been alone in the field for several years, studying the Kiona river tribe in the Territory of New Guinea. Haunted by the memory of his brothers' deaths and increasingly frustrated and isolated by his research, Bankson is on the verge of suicide when a chance encounter with colleagues, the controversial Nell Stone and her wry and mercurial Australian husband, Fen, pulls him back from the brink. Nell and Fen...

Fiona has no time today, not even to go to the bathroom. She is in a big hurry to show off the volcano she and Felix made for show-and-tell. Just as the volcano erupts ... oops!

While the library that Sam and his adventurous friend Sarah live in is being renovated, the two mice try to make new homes for themselves in the attic, constructing everything from a yurt to a geodesic dome. Includes photographs of real house styles discussed and a brief glossary of terms.

Maisy goes to the library in search of a book about fish and a quiet place in which to read it.

Celeste, a mouse longing for a real home, becomes a source of inspiration to teenaged Joseph, assistant to the artist and naturalist John James Audubon, at a New Orleans, Louisiana, plantation in 1821.

Marika Vecera, an accomplished war reporter, has dedicated her life to helping the world's oppressed and forgotten. When not on one of her dangerous assignments, she lives in Boston, exploring a new relationship with Seb, a psychologist who offers her glimpses of a better world. Returning from a harrowing assignment in Congo where she was kidnapped by rebel soldiers, Marika learns that a man she has always admired from afar, Pulitzer-winning war correspondent...

"Emma has always been 'the practical one' in the family. But that is about to change as she embarks on the adventure of her life. Emma Davis wants a new life now that she no longer needs to care for her grandmother. A spur-of-the-moment visit to a travel agency sets her on a journey far from her Iowa home. Emma takes a cruise to the far islands of the Pacific, but it isn't until she arrives in Papua New Guinea that she begins to realize her true calling....