Vera Williams tells of a young girl, who along with her waitress mother, saves coins in a big jar in hopes that they can someday buy a big, new, comfortable chair for their apartment, the kind of chair her mother deserves after being on her feet all day in the Blue Tile Diner. Into the jar also goes the money Grandma saves whenever she gets a bargain at the market. There hasn't been a comfortable place to sit in the apartment since a fire in their previous apartment burned everything to "charcoal and ashes." Friends and neighbors brought furniture to their new apartment downstairs, but no one brought anything big or soft or comfortable. Finally the jar is full, the coins are rolled, and in the book's crowning moment mother, daughter, and Grandma search four different furniture stores, and after carefully trying several chairs, like Goldilocks, they find the chair they've been dreaming of at last.

A child-friendly story about the trials and triumphs of starting over in a new place while keeping family and traditions close.

A kid with an unruly crop of hair, who gets out of bed to face a day that seems to grow increasingly worse with each passing minute. Indeed, on the very first page, Alexander wakes to hair full of gum, trips on his skateboard, and drops a sweater in a sink full of water. At breakfast, his brothers are having a far better day - having found prizes in their breakfast cereal - which makes Alexander feel worse. School offers him no respite from his horrible day: he gets reprimanded by a teacher, he gets demoted to third best friend, and at lunch, finds himself dessertless. Could the day get worse? After school, the dentist discovers a cavity, the elevator door closes on his foot, and at the shoe store, he has to buy plain white shoes (while both brothers get shoes with stripes!). Later, he gets lima beans for dinner and there's kissing on TV. Alexander can't wait for this day to end.

The trickster and folk hero, Kwaku Anansi, is a spider with six even wiser sons. In the course of the story, these six sons come to fulfill the promise of their respective colorful names as they work together to rescue their beloved father, when, one day, he wanders far from home and gets lost, seemingly forever...in the belly of a fish. When problem is solved, another descends, and Stone Thrower, together with the last son, Cushion, join forces to rescue father Anansi from that scrape, too. Home safe at last, Anansi decides to reward the rescuing son with a great globe of light. But even with the help of the Ashanti god, Nyame, it is impossible to choose just one spider son. Aptly, the great globe of light is placed in the night sky to bless everyone.

The kids at school dare John to visit the old house on the hill at night. When he and his sister go in, they find dusty dishes set on the table, a book open like it is waiting for a reader, and something hiding under the bed in the attic - and that is only one of the five scary stories with unexpected twists that are included in this collection.