Three years after the death of her mother, eleven-year-old Maddie finds a note attached to a popped balloon, leading to a correspondence with a mysterious fourteen-year-old girl who helps Maddie understand that life must go on.

Lizzie, who loves to tell and write stories, is surprised to discover that much of her storytelling inspiration comes from her messy baby brother.

"Bianca likes sending letters. Bianca likes stamps, too, and she collects them. She likes drawing and writing and dogs and watering her plants. But she does not like Yolanda who works at the post office. Will Yolanda ruin Bianca's Five-Letter Day? Or will Bianca find a way to solve her Yolanda problem?" -- Dust jacket.

Famous horror story writer R. U. Tremblin comes to the town of Maplewood to hold a short story writing contest, offering the five finalists the chance to spend what turns out to be a terrifying--and deadly--night with him in a haunted house.

A woman reminisces about her neighbor's son who was the object of a letter writing campaign by some fourth-graders when he went away to war in 1943.

"Abdul loves telling stories but thinks his messy handwriting and spelling mistakes will keep him from becoming an author, until Mr. Muhammad visits and encourages him to persist." --

In the summer of 1928, Lilly Belle Turner of Smyrna, Tennessee, participates in a young author's writing program, taught by Zora Neale Hurston and hosted by A'Lelia Walker in her Harlem teahouse at the height of the Harlem Renaissance.

In 1863, a sixteen-year-old boy nicknamed Scrib travels around the West making his living writing and delivering letters, an occupation that leads to him nearly getting killed, being jailed as a criminal, joining up with the notorious Crazy James Kincaid, and delivering a letter from President Abraham Lincoln to a Paiute Indian.

"Rafa se angustia cada vez que llega la hora de escribir. Como nunca le sucede algo interesante, por más que piensa y piensa, no se le ocurre nada. Pero con la ayuda de su maestra y de sus compañeros, Rafa descubrirá que las grandes historias están en todas partes, incluso en las cosas más pequeñas. ¿Quién dijo que escribir era difícil?" --

"Phoebe is a little girl with a problem. At school, the children are practicing writing their names. "Sound it out," their teacher coaches. But the sounds that Phoebe hears don't look like the letters in her name! After some procrastination, (boots on, boots off) Phoebe bravely makes a go of it. Readers will feel Phoebe's pride in her achievement, with her name perfectly sounded out and printed: Feeby. And they'll see that it's okay to make mistakes!"--...