When popular Lizzie Lovett goes missing, seventeen-year-old Hawthorne, a lonely misfit, finds herself becoming obsessed with solving the mystery.

With insight and a light touch, best-selling, Newbery Honor-winning author Gary D. Schmidt tells two poignant, linked stories: that of a grieving girl and a boy trying to escape his violent past. Following the death of her closest friend in summer 1968, Meryl Lee Kowalski goes off to St. Elene's Preparatory Academy for Girls, where she struggles to navigate the venerable boarding school's traditions and a social structure heavily weighted toward students...

After becoming lonely, a rare Beast sets out on a journey to find others like himself.

Lonely Gingerbread Baby, having set out to find a friend, enters a bakery where he tries to talk to different cookies and other figures, but winds up leading a crowd back to his house on a chase similar to the one in the familiar tale.

Cat eats, sleeps, and spends his days alone. The other cats think he is a grumpy cat, but really--he's just a lonely cat. But that is all about to change when he meets Kitten.

In parallel stories, Bone, an orphaned dog, finds and loses a series of homes, Molly, a family pet, helps Charlie through the grief and other after-effects of his brother's death, and lonely Henry pleads for a dog of his own.

A wandering cat brightens the lives of six lonely people--and persuades all of them to feed him until a near accident brings them all together.

While searching for a replacement heart at the Spare Parts Mart, a lonely robot finds a friend.

Madison Blackberry's dolls--Wildflower, Rockstar, and Miss Selene--have lives that she envies, with their beautiful clothes and warm, cozy house, while she is lonely most of the time.

A young boy who spends most of his time alone in his bedroom makes new friends after the monster in his drawing becomes a monstrous nuisance.