Living with his grandfather on an island off British Columbia, orphaned ten-year-old Daniel feels deep loneliness until the night he meets a mermaid whose identity he tries to learn.

Young Elsie must find a way to adapt to her new home on the Nebraska prairie after she and her father leave their comfortable city life in Boston.

A young boy who spends most of his time alone in his bedroom makes new friends after the monster in his drawing becomes a monstrous nuisance.

A dog who longs for someone to play with finds out how good life is as an only pet when another dog comes to visit.

Katerina the goose sees another goose in the side of Mr. Buswell's shiny car and wishes it would come join her in the town pond.

Everyone and everything in the town of Neatasapin is tidy, except Emmaline who likes to dig dirt and jump in puddles, and wants to adopt an untidy bunny.

When a new virus surfaces, Lucy and her husband Reed, along with their five closest friends and family, sequester themselves on Reed's family's private island off the coast of Maine where she feels her own grip on reality slipping as tempers flare, strange signs appear and accidents turn deadly.

After the death of his wife, an old man gradually realizes that making the soup she used to cook and sharing it with friends eases his loneliness.

With his mother on the phone, his father checking e-mail, and his sister playing with her friends, a little boy feels as if he is all alone in the house, and no matter how badly he behaves, no one comes to stop him.