A fatally ill mother with only two months to live creates a list of things she wants to do before she dies without telling her family of her illness.

The story of sex, violence, race and rock and roll in 1950s Chicago, and the exciting but turbulent lives of some of America's musical legends, including Muddy Waters, Leonard Chess, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Etta James and Chuck Berry.

Fia is a wise and somewhat tough 8-year-old girl. Perhaps a cousin of Pippi Longstocking, only a little more vulnerable. Like Pippi, and all other children, she wants to be big and strong, with the power and opportunity to make the world the way she wants it to be. Fia has a difficult role as a kind of "mother" to her mother, a mother ...

A heroic fire captain values dedication and service to others above all else, but the most important partnership in his life, his marriage, is about to go up in smoke.

The fates of horses, and the people who own and command them, are revealed as Black Beauty narrates the circle of his life.