In 1940, Anna Hirsch and her family are captured by the Nazis and deported to a refugee camp in the south of France. The children held in the camp are sent to Le Chambon, a tiny village whose citizens have agreed to care for deported children. There, in the face of escalating dominance and threats from the Nazi party, the good people of Le Chambon protect the refugees.
Mallins Wood is home to the last surviving gorgon, and Col’s mother, the gorgon’s supernatural Companion, is determined to save it from encroaching development–even to the point of endangering Col and his best friend Connie, the most powerful Companion alive.
Hob, the friendly spirit who lives under the stairs and protects the house, must do battle with a variety of evil beings trying to take control of his family’s home.
Outside her home in Michoacan, Mexico, grows eight-year-old Isabel’s greatest treasure: an oyamel tree. Every autumn, a miracle happens because Isabel’s tree is the wintering place for thousands upon thousands of monarch butterflies that migrate from the north. When they flutter down to roost, they transform Isabel’s tree into La casa de las mariposas–The House of Butterflies. But this wonder is in danger of disappearing forever. Isabel’s family is poor, and it has been a cruel, dry year for Papa’s meager crop of corn and beans. Soon, chopping down the tree to sell its wood may be the family’s only hope for survival. What will happen to the butterflies then?
Sweet old Mrs. Collywobbles lives on the edge of a big, dark, scary wood, so it’s a good thing that she has a pet frog to protect her. Too bad for the Greedy Goblin, the Smelly Troll, and the Giant Hungry Ogre, who don’t take this little amphibian seriously!
Aria is different from the other children in her village because she cannot speak. But Aria loves being with the birds around her jungle home — with them, she is free to be herself. When the village men begin to catch the birds to sell in their market-place, Aria moves out of the village to protect her friends. But then the villagers try to catch Aria. She flies away to freedom with the birds.
Finding a seriously hurt dolphin in the Amazon near her small Colombian village and suspecting her stepfather of having wounded it, Carmenza nurses it back to health and turns to the wise old Indian Omar to appease its spirit.
A desert nomad woman has no milk, so brings her pet gazelle for her son to nurse. One day the boy and the gazelle wander off, and the pet gazelle finds a herd of her own kind. She protects the boy and he learns to run and feed himself. Hunters discover and capture him. He is terrified and does not eat. Finally, he escapes to rejoin his herd.
Wanting to keep his sister safe from all the elements that could do her harm, like monsters and beasts, young Ben fearlessly takes on all the challenges of the day to complete his task and live up to his courageous reputation.
An elderly man shares his life story with his grandson, complete with long, dangerous walks to school, war, love and marriage, and a very special protector.