Series

Mimi falls asleep in a box in the back of a moving truck and wakes up on the wrong side of the city. Each chapter is one stretch of the walk home, and one person who helps or nearly keeps her.

Liangliang just moved to Sunshine Street and doesn't know anyone yet. Each chapter is one ordinary conversation -- a greeting, a shop, a phone call home -- that makes the street a little less strange.

Every Sunday Guoguo cooks with her grandma, who keeps every recipe in her heart and none on paper. Then Grandma's eyes start to fail, and Guoguo starts a notebook.

Grandpa Qian gives his red umbrella to a stranger in the rain. Tied inside is a note: when the rain stops, give it to someone who needs it. Each chapter, it does.

Grandpa Yang is seventy and can't even switch on the phone his granddaughter sends him. Ten chapters, ten things a phone can do, and in the last one he uses them all to reach her front door.

Youyou, nine, spends the summer helping in her mum's fruit shop by the university. Ten customers, ten everyday conversations: prices, change, a phone order, a delivery, a foreigner learning Chinese, and the old man who comes for two apples every morning -- until he doesn't.

Nannan has lived all eight years of her life in warm Guangzhou and never seen snow. She flies north alone to her cousin Beibei in Harbin -- twenty below, and not a single flake. Then it comes: a snowman, a frozen river, a fight, the ice lanterns and New Year's Eve.

Grandma Hu is sixty-six and spends her days in front of the TV, until the doctor tells her to move. Her granddaughter Xiaokui, the fastest girl in her class, gives her ten weeks to get ready for a five-kilometre race. A hundred metres finishes her on day one.

When Dafei leaves for university two thousand kilometres away, his little sister Xiaoke won't say goodbye. He leaves her a box of ten envelopes, one for every Sunday, each with a small brave thing to do.

Mum has to go to Beijing for ten days, and Dad has never cooked a meal or done a plait. She leaves a list of twenty things on the fridge. Ten days: a burnt breakfast, banana plaits, a pink wash, a fever in the night -- and Team Mum's Away slowly learning what she does.

Leo is eight, English, and knows three words of Chinese when his family moves to Dalian for a year. Ten everyday conversations -- a lift, a fruit stall, a taxi, a menu, a first school day, a doctor, a phone call -- with Pipi from downstairs and Grandma Pan, who corrects his tones.

Amu, seven, lives on the sixth floor in Yangzhou and isn't allowed a pet -- until Dad buys a five-yuan duckling at the market. Doubao lives in a shoebox, then the bath, then the balcony; she quacks at five, escapes down the stairs and turns up at the school gate. Then she gets too big for a flat.

Chenchen is six and has never had to share anything. Then his baby sister arrives in Hefei: tiny, red and loud. She cries all night, Grandma takes his room, and on his birthday he shouts that they should send her back. But her first smile is for him, and so, a year later, is her first word.

Yaoyao, eight, can't read the blackboard in Guilin -- and she's terrified of glasses. A pair of round red frames makes every leaf and every cormorant on the river sharp, until loud Ruirui calls her four-eyes and she gets on the wrong bus. Then she notices Ruirui screwing up his eyes too.

Yiyi, seven, has never seen snow. This year her family takes the train from Ningbo to spend Spring Festival with Grandpa and Grandma in Jinan, where her cousin Ranran thinks she's a soft southern baby. Couplets and an upside-down 福, dumplings with a lucky coin, fireworks, red envelopes, a temple fair, warm springs in the snow and lanterns.

Maimai, six, starts primary school in Xining with a red school bag and a knot in her tummy. Ten everyday situations -- the gate, the canteen, a lost way to the toilet, rain with no umbrella, a phone call -- and a desk mate who won't say a word, until the Friday show.

Huanhuan, eight, wants a dog more than anything; Mum says the flat's too small and Grandpa says dogs are dirty. Then a black-and-white shelter dog with one ear up and one ear down sits down in front of them and won't move. Ten chapters -- a stolen bun, a bath, a lost dog, a thunderstorm -- and Grandpa, who doesn't like dogs.

After Grandma dies, Grandpa leaves his fields to live with Qingqing's family on the ninth floor of a Yichang tower, and sits by the window saying nothing. Then Qingqing asks what he used to grow. Ten chapters of seeds, soil in buckets, green shoots, a storm, a greedy bird, the first red tomato -- and Grandma's flowers, nine floors above the Yangtze.

Xiaotao, eight, lives with her grandma in a Hunan village while her parents work in a Dongguan toy factory a thousand kilometres away. This Spring Festival, when they leave again, she goes with them. Ten chapters: a long train, a room smaller than Grandma's kitchen, a school where nobody talks like her, a friend called A-Hua, and a toy rabbit with one crooked eye.

Haihai's name means sea, but she has never been in the sea and she is scared of water. This summer she is staying with Grandma in seaside Qinhuangdao, where Grandma swims every morning at six. Ten chapters: waves, a swimming class, opening your eyes underwater, a boy even more scared than she is, Grandma's own story, five metres, and a sunrise swim together.