Raymie Nightingale

An elderly character dies of natural causes. One of the kids shows up with an ugly bruise on her face because her mom has hit her. Another kid's parents drowned in a ship sinking, or so she believes. An adult character claims to have seen a baby snatched from its mother's arms by a giant sea bird, never to be seen again. The local lake is famous for the ghost of a woman who drowned herself there after the Civil War. One of the girls believes her cat is safe and enjoying life at the animal shelter, while everybody else seems to know the place's history of killing every cat as soon as it gets them.

All the girls are fatherless, and at least one dad has run off with a woman with an undesirable reputation; their abandoned mothers are bitter.

A lot of adult characters smoke.

Parents need to know that Raymie Nightingale, by multiple Newbery Medal winner Kate DiCamillo, draws heavily from the events and feelings of the author's childhood in 1975 Florida. It offers strong positive messages of friendship, courage, and making things better in an often-cruel world, where fathers desert families, parents hit their children, grandparents steal to feed their grandchildren, kids steal from pure cussedness, and everybody but you knows the shelter you think is caring for your cat has killed him. As 10-year-old Raymie and her new friends form elaborate plans to make things right, their good deeds rarely go as planned but their brave acts of kindness often deliver unexpected rewards. Their cheer-worthy efforts -- supported in various ways by kind, if often odd, adults -- often involve questionable activities such as breaking and entering but are driven by noble, sometimes life-saving, motives. Some adult characters smoke.