Alison McGhee

"When Clara Winter left her rural Adirondack Mountain town for college, she never looked back. Her mother, Tamar, a fiercely independent but loving woman who raised Clara on her own, all but pushed her out the door, forcing Clara to build a new life for herself, far from her roots, far from her high school boyfriend, far from the life she has always known. Now more than a decade has passed, and Clara, a successful writer, has been summoned home. Tamar...

A first grader is frightened on her first day of school after hearing a rumor that her teacher is a 300-year-old alien with a purple tongue who steals baby teeth from her students.

A mother reflects on the all the milestones, from walking in a deep wood to holding someone else's hand, that her child will achieve during life.

A father tells his young son the story behind each of his tattoos.

When a young woman emerges from a lengthy coma-like state she must face the decisions that were made about her body--without her consent ..." --

Pablo, nearly ten, has many questions about his origins and how he arrived at Isla as a baby, but finding the answers may mean losing his lifetime companion, Birdy the parrot.

Winner of the Minnesota Book Award, author Alison McGhee pens tales shimmering with shrewd truth and wild imaginings. In this moving novel, she tells of the growing friendship between two oddly matched people as they share their very different world. With a missing father, sister, and grandfather-and a mother who refuses to explain-11-year-old Clara lives with many questions. When she begins interviewing an elderly immigrant for a school biography...

Among other things, Julia Gillian is highly skilled in the Art of Knowing -- about her quirky neighbors, her Minneapolis neighborhood, even the inscrutable "claw machine" in the back of the corner hardware store. Unfortunately, the one skill Julia Gillian doesn't have is knowing how the book she's reading is going to end; it doesn't seem as if it's going to have a happy ending, and that frightens her. But being afraid teaches her something new: that...

A little boy in a sheriff's hat and his dog deputy are bringing donuts home when the "Sheriff" is unable to resist getting rid of a slightly squished powdered donut, then wonders how everyone knows he ate it.

A loyal dog promises to protect his young mistress and her home from any danger.