Shirley Parenteau

"When eleven-year-old Chiyo Tamura is sent from her home in a small Japanese mountain village to a girls' school in the city of Tsuchiura, she never imagines that she will soon be in Tokyo helping to welcome more than twelve thousand Friendship Dolls from America--including Emily Grace, a gift to her own school. Nor could she dream that she'd have an important role in the crafting of Miss Tokyo, one of fifty-eight Japanese dolls to be sent to America...

It's 1926, and the one thing eleven-year-old Lexie Lewis wants more than anything is to leave Portland, where she is living with her strict grandparents, and rejoin her mother, a carefree singer in San Francisco. But Mama's new husband doesn't think a little girl should live with parents who work all night and sleep all day. Lexie's class has been raising money to ship a doll to the children of Japan in a friendship exchange, and when Lexie learns...

Little bears Floppy, Fuzzy, Yellow, and Calico secretly prepare a birthday cake and gift for Big Brown Bear, whose curiosity is piqued by delicious smells.

Four little bears covered in mud don't want to take a bath.

It's Halloween and Big Brown Bear and the four little bears are very excited. But will there be enough costumes for everyone?