Narrator Jack and his mother, who was kidnapped seven years earlier when she was a 19-year-old college student, celebrate his fifth birthday. They live in a tiny, 11-foot-square soundproofed cell in a converted shed in the kidnapper's yard. The sociopath, whom Jack has dubbed Old Nick, visits at night, grudgingly doling out food and supplies. But Ma, as Jack calls her, proves to be resilient and resourceful--and attempts a nail-biting escape.

A mother and child discuss how the mother's love would remain constant even if her child were a stinky skunk, scary ape, or bug-eating green alien.

Little Fish has all sorts of fishy friends in his underwater home, but loves one of them most of all.

A mother explains to her child all the ways her love remains even while she's away.

A little mummy who wants to run away tells his mother how he will escape, but no matter what horrible creature he claims he will become or where he plans to go, she promises to be there with him.

Little Charlie the bear cub says he would do anything for his mother and proves it to her when bedtime arrives.

A mother and child discuss how the mother's love would remain constant even if her child were a stinky skunk, scary ape, or bug-eating green alien.

Giving advice is what Julianne does for a living - in a column in her local Wisconsin paper. But when it comes to her personal life, Julie seems to have missed some clues. She has worked hard to keep her marriage fresh and to be a good mother, so it's a mystery when husband, Leo, decides to defect from their life together and their three children. In his absence, Julie is diagnosed with a serious illness, which drives her children to undertake

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A little rabbit enjoys having a day off from kindergarten and spending time with his mother during a snowstorm, but his father's flight home is cancelled until the snow stops falling.

Dinosaur spends a day "helping" his mother, from the time he roars to awaken her until their final contest at bedtime.