Persistent young Edward has many questions for his sleepy mother, many of which are answered, "Because it's night time."

Cameron is used to moving at a moment's notice because he and his mother are always running away from his supposedly violent father, but he is disturbed by their latest refuge, a creepy, deserted farmhouse, haunted by bloodthirsty dogs--and when he sees aboy hiding in the barn, and finds an old picture of the same boy, he starts wondering about the possibility of human ghosts.

A mother's words help a little boy imagine the sights and sounds of the seashore, even though he's never seen the ocean.

A little raccoon wants to see the night but his mother makes him wait until the full moon.

Twelve-year-olds Reef and Theo have a mutual problem: their memories are getting mixed up, and that means that Reef is losing his memory of his mother, recently dead of COVID, which terrifies him--but for Theo his new memories are helping him deal with his domineering father.

Maverick Falconer is just starting middle school and he wishes he were a hero like his father because maybe then he could deal with his mother's drinking and series of abusive boyfriends, not to mention the kids who bully him in middle school (pretty muchthe same ones who bullied him in elementary school)--but as the year passes he begins to realize that other kids have problems too, and maybe if they can all survive sixth-grade things will get better....

"Tucked in bed at a new apartment, a boy and his mother trade favorite memories. Some are idyllic, like a picnic with Dad, but others are more surprising: a fall from a bike into soft piled hay, the smell of an old oil lamp when a rainstorm blew the power out. Now it's just the two of them, and the house where all those memories happened is far away. But maybe someday, this will be a favorite memory, too: happy and sad, an end and a beginning intertwined....

A boy and his inventor mother embark on a journey to other universes in pursuit of the perfect ice cream sundae, with everything on it.