The Fourth of July delivers more than just the local display of fireworks for Samuel and Julia Wortham. They return from the festivities in Dearing, Illinois, to find Samuel's borther Edward, out of prison and on their doorstep. Surprise turns to shock and confusion as Edward introduces a young girl named Katie and declares that Samuel is her father. Samuel maintains his innocence and cannot understand why his brother would make up such a story, Julia...

Simple text featuring the sound of the letter "n" tells about two neighbors on Nelson Street.

Noreen Kelly loses her job and her boyfriend on the same day, and as she wonders what to do with the rest of her life, she finds some surprising answers, some new friends, and a new passion while walking through her neighborhood.

It is New Year's Eve when the storm of the century hits northern California. In a quiet neighborhood in San Francisco, the lives of three strangers are about to collide. For Quinn Thompson, what happens in the storm's wake will bring down a barrier he has built around himself since his wife's death. For neighbor Maggie Dartman, it will spark friendship at a time when she needs it most. And for Jack Adams, a carpenter who will repair Quinn's and Maggie's...

The block party was Carrie's idea, but when it arrives she can only think about two things: the talent show and the delicious noodle dishes from many countries that her neighbors are bringing.

Sarah Wortham is harboring a secret that could reveal the cause of the fire that destroyed their neighbor's farm, but is caught between the truth and a promise to a dear friend.

Louise Kirk learns about love and loss at an early age. When she is nine years old, her former beauty queen mother disappears, leaving a note that reads onlya̮nd incorrectlyL̮̳ouise knows how to work the washing machine. S̲oon after, the Richters and their adopted son, Abel, move in across the street. Louiseś immediate devotion to the exotic, motherly Mrs. Richter is quickly transferred to her nature-loving, precociously intelligent son.

In 1963, when her flamboyant mother abandons the family to pursue her dream of becoming an actress, eleven-year-old Ellie Dingman takes charge of her younger siblings, while also trying to deal with her outcast status in school and frightening acts of prejudice toward the "misfits" that live on her street.

Sixteen-year-old identical twins Sabine and Blythe Braxton cope differently when their father dies unexpectedly, but unite to figure out mysterious Charlie and the crumbling mansion he moves into with them.

"Pursues a rich understanding of this good, kind, sometimes strange, deeply influential, holy man: the neighborhood he came from, the neighborhood he built, and the kind of neighbor he, by his example, calls all of us to be even now, in our own troubled time"--