On Cape Cod in 1972, eleven-year-old Naomi, known as Chirp for her love of birds, gets help from neighbor Joey as she struggles to cope with her mother's multiple sclerosis and its effect on her father and sister.

Katie misses school while she is home with the flu.

While her father is in the hospital, thirteen-year-old Isla befriends Harry, the first boy to understand her love of the outdoors, and as Harry's health fails, Isla tries to help both him and the lone swan they see, struggling to fly, on the lake outside Harry's window.

Judy is excited about becoming a doctor, especially when Class 3T starts a new unit on the human body, but she learns more about being a patient when she catches tonsillitis from her little brother, Stink.

An illness cursing the land forces seventeen-year-old Vega, the Last Astronomer, to venture across the wilderness to discover the stars message that will save her people.

Tomboy Katy Carr dreams of one day being 'beautiful and beloved, and amiable as an angel'. For now though she is dishevelled, untidy, and always getting into mischief. But when a terrible accident threatens Katy's grand plans for the future, she must draw on her good humour and courage to see her through.

A deadly, flu-like epidemic and a plague of flesh-eating creatures threaten the lives of the children at Perdido Beach while Sam, Astrid, Caine, and Diana each struggle with doubts and uncertainties.

All his life Benji, now ten, has been sickly and he has long been targeted by the school bully, but after a seizure Benji gets a therapy dog that is not only big enough to protect him, it can also talk.

The day twelve-year-old Stanly finds a finger bone growing into a skeleton in his yard everything changes--his seven-year-old sister Miren adopts the skeleton, which only children can see, as a friend and playmate, and as her health continues to deteriorate Stanly blames the skeleton and tries to drive it away, although it is the only thing that seems to give Miren any joy.

"Twelve-year-old El has planned on making her first week at a new school fantastic. She won't go by her given name, Laughter. She'll sit in the back of the classroom where she can make new friends. She won't even have time to think about all the fun her old friends are having without her. Everything will be great. But when her dad picks her up after school and tells her that her younger sister, Echo, has a life-threatening illness, her world is suddenly...