"In a cyclical story, a child wishes to fly like a butterfly, who wishes for privacy like a stick insect's, who wishes to swim like a whirligig beetle. Each garden creature expresses a desire to be like someone else, ending with the dragonfly who wishes to be like a child who can run, jump, laugh, play, count, build, and more."--

This collection presents characters in the midst of personal and national crises. We meet a failed poet who, envious of other people's wealth during the real-estate bubble, becomes an embezzler; a clavichordist whose dreams of art collapse under the obligations of marriage and fatherhood; and, in "Bronze," a sexually confused college freshman whose encounter with a stranger on a train leads to a revelation about his past and his future.

No one on the island of By-the-Sea would call the Fernweh women what they are, but if you need the odd bit of help, such as a sleeping aid concocted by moonlight, they are the ones to ask. Georgina Fernweh waits impatiently for the tingle of magic in her fingers--magic that has touched every woman in her family, including her twin sister, Mary. But with her eighteenth birthday looming at the end of her last summer on the island, Georgina fears her...

"Gabrielle Wilson has the perfect life: she lives in a Beverly Hills mansion with her loving husband and beautiful daughter, and works at a massively-successful PR firm she founded with her best friend. When her father, Jeremiah, suddenly admits that an affair he had years before resulted in a daughter, she is shocked to find that she is actually happy to hear the news. Could this woman be the sister she's been praying for all her life? Meanwhile,...

Tim and Nick, best friends, neighbors and co-workers, are suddenly tripped up when one of Nick's harebrained, get-rich-quick schemes actually succeeds. VaPooRizer is a spray that literally makes dog poop, or any other kind of poop for that matter, evaporate into thin air. Tim, who had no faith in Nick's idea, passed on an opportunity to get in on the deal, can only watch as Nick's fortune -- and Tim's own envy -- grow to equally outrageous proportions....

A young Dominican American girl in New York City moves from jealousy to empathy as her parents babysit children whose families work the overnight shift in this picture book debut. Night after night, a young girl watches her mami set up a cot in the living room for guests in their Washington Heights apartment, like Raquel (who's boring) and Edgardo (who gets crumbs everywhere). She resents that they get the entire living room with a view of the George...

Elizabeth envies her brother the pampered treatment he gets when he is sick in bed. Then she gets sick too.

Envy turns to admiration and finally to friendship for Goat and Unicorn.