fiction

While vacationing in Thailand for the holidays, Tara and her mother are thrown into survival mode when a massive tsunami sweeps through Phuket.

The people of fourteenth-century Florence, Italy, starving after years of bad weather and natural disasters, now face the Black Plague but twelve-year-old Maria is determined to survive. Includes historical note, glossary, and discussion question.

It is 1911, and fourteen-year-old Lucia (Lucy) Morelli dreams of going to college, but for the present she lives with her large Italian family in a crowded apartment in New York City, and works as a sewing machine operator in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory bringing home money because her father can no longer work--but this is March twenty-fifth, and Lucy will soon be fighting for her life as fire sweeps through the locked down factory trapping the workers inside.

A quiet night shift in a Galveston, Texas, discount store turns spooky when thirteen-year-old Sara Leung spots ghostly children playing in the aisles of the store.

When a hurricane exposes Soleida's family's secret sculpture garden, the Cuban government arrests her artist parents, forcing her to escape alone to Central America where she meets Dariel, a Cuban American boy, and together they work to protect the environment and bring attention to the imprisoned artists in Cuba.

Illustrations and simple text depict children in different countries around the world enjoying the universal benefits of the Sun from sunup in Japan to sundown in Madagascar.

Maeve Merritt, chafing against the rigid rules of her London boarding school, finds her life transformed by the genie she happens upon--and by those who want to steal him.

"Now that Maeve Merritt has surrendered Mermeros, the djinni she found in a sardine can, she expects her life in London will be dull as dirt. But villains from Maeve's previous escapades are still searching for the djinni, now in the hands of Mr. Poindexter, the adoptive father of Maeve's friend Tommy. When Mr. Poindexter tries to use one of his wishes, he and Mermeros go missing--and without a guardian, Tom will be forced back to the orphanage. With the help of magical flying carpetbags, Maeve, Tom, and their friend Alice soar off to find Mr. Poindexter and that rascal, Mermeros, before the djinni's fabled wishes fall into the wrong hands"--Amazon.

"Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning ... past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She's even started to feel like she knows them ... Their life-as she sees it-is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost. And then she sees something shocking. It's only a minute until the train moves on, but it's enough. Now everything's changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel offers what she knows to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in what happens next, as well as in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?"--Provided by publisher.

"An angry warlock has doomed the people of Flanders to an eternal winter. The only way he will reverse the unending snow and cold is via the gift of a silver unicorn. The problem? No one has ever seen one. Do they even exist? You must decide: do you leave your village to battle the warlock on your own or do you go in search of a silver unicorn?"--Provided by publisher.