Rachel Huber returns to her hometown of Reflection to care for her ailing grandmother. Twenty years ago, a tragedy occurred in Reflection and everyone holds Rachel responsible. But she has allies in a young woman who was touched by the tragedy and a man who was her childhood friend. It's her grandmother, however, who surprises Rachel with her wise counsel and secrets she's long been concealing.

In her own singularly beautiful style, Newbery Medal winner Sharon Creech intricately weaves together two tales, one funny, one bittersweet, to create a heartwarming, compelling, and utterly moving story of love, loss, and the complexity of human emotion. Thirteen-year-old Salamanca Tree Hiddle, proud of her country roots and the "Indian-ness in her blood," travels from Ohio to Idaho with her eccentric grandparents. Along the way, she tells them of the story of Phoebe Winterbottom, who received mysterious messages, who met a "potential lunatic," and whose mother disappeared. As Sal entertains her grandparents with Phoebe's outrageous story, her own story begins to unfold—the story of a thirteen-year-old girl whose only wish is to be reunited with her missing mother.

'Stories of a Western Town' is a collection of short stories by Octave Thanet. The tales in this book all share one central theme, being set during the Wild West. Here are the following titles to be found inside this book: 'The Besetment of Kurt Lieders', 'The Face of Failure', 'Tommy and Thomas', 'Mother Emeritus', 'An Assisted Providence', and 'Harry Lossing'.

Fourteen “exhilarating” (The Boston Globe) stories that explore “the delicate balance between nature and civilization” (San Francisco Chronicle), from the New York Times bestselling author of The Tortilla Curtain “[A] rollicking collection of . . . good, old-fashioned, funny-suspenseful-head shaking stories.”—The New York Times (Best Books of the Year) There may be no one better than T.C. Boyle at engaging, shocking, and ultimately gratifying readers while at the same time testing his characters' emotional and physical endurance. From “Wild Child,” a retelling of the story of Victor, the feral boy who was captured running naked through the forests of Napoleonic France, to “La Conchita,” the tale of a catastrophic mudslide that allows a cynic to reclaim his own humanity, these tales are by turns magical and moving, showcasing the mischievous humor and socially conscious sensibility that have made Boyle one of the foremost masters of the short story.