Allen Say

A fictionalized biography of James Castle, a deaf, autistic artist whose drawings hang in major museums throughout the world.

A Japanese boy learns of Christmas when his mother decorates a pine tree with paper cranes.

The New Girl at school plays the violin so beautifully that Almond gets lost in the music, but she also feels sad because she does not know if she herself has any talent at all--until the school play, when with the encouragement of her mother, her teacher, and the New Girl, she finds she has a talent for acting.

A young boy, aware of his grandmother's forgetfulness, helps her recall a time when she was a kindergarten teacher teaching her students about hummingbirds and their nests.