Wilbur the pig is desolate when he discovers that he is destined to be the farmer's Christmas dinner until his spider friend, Charlotte, decides to help him.

After his family hires migrant Mexican workers to help save their Vermont farm from foreclosure, eleven-year-old Tyler befriends the oldest daughter, but when he discovers they may not be in the country legally, he realizes that real friendship knows no borders.

When Megan's father asks her to feed the pigs, he also tells her to be careful not to leave the gate open.

Henry the pig is excited to spot the Great Pig in the sky one starry night, but when he shows the other farm animals, he gets frustrated because they each see something different.

The reminiscences of a New York lawyer, Jim Burden, about his boyhood in Nebraska, particularly a young Bohemian girl named Antonia Shimerda, are set against the backdrop of the American assimilation of the immigrant.

Chepito has many questions about farm life by asking why, like why is his mother cooking breakfast, why is his neighbor digging in the ground and so on.

It is December, and there are many things for the family to do around the farm to get it ready for winter.

When a case of chicken measles steals the voice of the blue-headed rooster who used to crow all day long, his friend, a plain brown hen, brings musicians to remind him to sing and save him from becoming "quiet rooster stew."

"During Sarah Smarsh's turbulent childhood in Kansas in the 1980s and 1990s, the country's changing economic policies solidified her family's place among the working poor. By telling the story of her life and the lives of the people she loves, Smarsh challenges us to examine the class divide in our country and the myths about people thought to be less because they earn less. Her personal history affirms the corrosive impact intergenerational poverty...