Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration of the written word in all its guises, and of finding connection in the most surprising ways.
Ten-year-old Michael's baby sister is ill, his parents are frantic, and Doctor Death has come to call. Michael feels helpless. Then he discovers a human being --- or a strange kind of beast --- in the garage. Together Michael and his new friend Mina carry the creature out into the light, and Michael's world changes forever.
A tiny girl is abandoned on a ship headed for Australia in 1913. She is taken in by the dockmaster and his wife and raised as their own. On her twenty-first birthday, they tell her the truth, and with her sense of self shattered and very little to go on, "Nell" sets out to trace her real identity.
