Barbara Cooney

Ruthie and her mother wonder how they will fulfill their obligation of getting the perfect Christmas tree to the town for the holiday celebration, since Papa has left the Appalachian area to go to war.

Describes the strange and splendid things that can happen on a bimulous night when the sky is like lace.

As a child, Great-aunt Alice Rumphius resolved that when she grew up she would go to faraway places, live by the sea in her old age, and do something to make the world more beautiful; she does them all, the last being the hardest of all. In Spanish and English.

A hill covered with rocks and wooden boxes becomes an imaginary town for Marian, her sisters, and their friends.

Describes the day-to-day life throughout the changing seasons of an early 19th-century New England family.