In search of writing ideas, an author takes a walk with his dog around the neighborhood.

One by one, a number of people of varying ages and backgrounds transform a trash-filled inner-city lot into a productive and beautiful garden, and in doing so, the gardeners are themselves transformed.

A friendly neighborhood business competition between sixth-graders Rachel Chambers, so quiet she is practically invisible, and Peter S. Gronkowski, future mogul, turns into a ruthless rivalry.

"A tiny narwhal in a fishbowl discovers that sometimes the difference between staying home and a big adventure is a group of loving friends"--

This adaptation of the old nursery poem "Over in the Meadow" introduces neighborhood animals and their young and the numbers one through ten.

In the seeming tranquility of Regency Square in Cheltenham live the diverse inhabitants of its ten houses. One summer's evening, the square's rivalries and allegiances are disrupted by a sudden and unusual death - an arrow to the head, shot through an open window at no. 6. Unfortunately for the murderer, an invitation to visit had just been sent by the crime writer Aldous Barnet, staying with his sister at no. 8, to his friend Superintendent Meredith....

After a heavy snowfall, Stella Mae Culpepper goes to the park and starts sculpting, and soon all of her neighbors, normally detached and indifferent, are working together to build a fantastic snow creature.

Widow Phoebe Allen has single-handedly raised a wonderful daughter and established a successful business, and now enjoys the amorous attentions of a longtime friend. When she learns that her old boyfriend has purchased a house nearby, Phoebe must confront long-suppressed feelings for her charismatic first love, now a high-profile film director. For years, Phoebe has concealed truths from her daughter and may now be forced to divulge them. As the past...

Together Pa and Jelly Bean build a sidewalk pantry right next to their sidewalk library, and as they get more visitors, Jelly Bean comes up with the idea to combine the books and food; so neighbors feel invited to take a meal and a good book.

It is August 15, 1953, the day of a street carnival in the Italian enclave of Elephant Park, Ohio, when Rocco LaGrassa receives an excruciating piece of news: his son has died in a POW camp in Korea. Against the background of immigration, broken loyalties, and racial hostility, the story presents everything Rocco sees through the eyes of various characters in the crowd.