Rob, who passes the time in his rural Florida community by wood carving, is drawn by his spunky but angry friend Sistine into a plan to free a caged tiger.

The wife, sons, and daughter-in-law of Noe, a man touched by God, describe their struggles to understand and to help when Noe instructs them to gather wood and animals and prepare to spend an unspecified amount of time living together trapped on an ark.

Twelve-year-old Maggie comes to dread biology class because her favorite teacher is insisting that she dissect a worm, an assignment that makes her feel very squeamish and awakens her to the question of animal rights.

When John was ten years old his father brought back a baby orangutan from Indonesia, and Raja quickly becomes John's "brother" and responsibility--so years later, after his parents divorce, and his father has sold Raja to a roadside zoo, John sets out to rescue him and bring him to a sanctuary in Indonesia.

Twelve-year-old Winifred is being fostered by the eccentric but kind Margery Dawson while her mother is dealing with addiction problems, and mostly Fred is determined not to form any attachments to anybody--until the condition of Toby, the abused dog next door, captures first her attention and then her heart, and somehow it becomes increasingly difficult to stay detached from the people who are helping her.

Eleven-year-old Yonder stopped talking when her mother died, and she stopped going to school because of the bullies, knowing that her father would never even notice (although the social worker did); indeed the only creature that seems to care about her is the one-eyed Shetland pony called Dirt who lives on the neighboring farm--so when she discovers that Dirt is about to be sold for horsemeat she is determined to find a way to save him.

When Ivan, a gorilla who has lived for years in a down-and-out circus-themed mall, meets Ruby, a baby elephant that has been added to the mall, he decides that he must find her a better life.