"Once the hottest mergers and acquisitions executive in the company, Henrietta Wegner can see the ambitious and impossibly young up-and-comers gunning for her job. When Henri's boss makes it clear she'll be starting the New Year unemployed unless she can close a big deal before the holidays, Henri impulsively tells him that she can convince her aging parents to sell Wegner's -- their iconic Frankenmuth, Michigan, Christmas store -- to a massive, soulless...

Relates the story of sisters Janny and Lien Brilleslijper of Amsterdam, who joined the Dutch resistance and created a clandestine safehouse in the woods, which became an important Jewish hiding place and underground center, before being captured by the Nazis and put on the last train to Auschwitz along with Anne Frank and her family.

"'Few true friends have I known and two were giraffes . . . ' Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away. But when he learns giraffes are going extinct, he finds himself recalling an unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave. It's 1938. The Great Depression lingers. Hitler is threatening Europe, and world-weary Americans long for wonder. They find it in two giraffes who miraculously survive a hurricane while crossing the...