orphans

Malik and his grandfather are trying to flee a war-torn country on the last ship waiting at the port for those who can escape--but when the ship leaves only Malik is aboard, and he will need all his courage to survive in a new country.

Jem Barbary becomes a bogler's apprentice in 1870's London and gets the fright of his life in a city where science clashes with superstition and monsters lurk in every alley.

After learning that her family adopted her, Valli runs away from home to live on the streets of Kolkata, India, where she begs, steals, and resists help from a doctor who reveals that Valli has leprosy.

Luc is an orphan, living in debt slavery in Gabon, until he meets a Professor who claims to be studying chimpanzees, and they head off into the jungle--but when the Professor disappears, Luc has to fend for himself and join forces with the chimps to save their forest.

Twelve-year-old Jesse leaves his home on Maryland's Eastern Shore to help a young runaway slave find a safe haven in the early days of the Civil War.

In Tokyo, fifteen-year-old Daniel X faces two of the most dangerous aliens on the planet, who are plotting to use video games to control children and turn them into an army of doom.

As Daniel X continues to hunt for intergalactic aliens, he and his friends go to England searching for Beta, an outlaw who takes the form of fire and who killed Daniel's parents when he was two years old.

"Poppy, Marcus, Dash, Dylan, and Azumi are all trapped within Shadow House, a sinister estate where past and present intertwine. As they fight to find a way out, the kids think the ghosts of the house are the greatest danger they face. Little do the kids know it's the secrets they're each hiding that will prove even more lethal. They're going to have to come face-to-face with their fears if they stand any hope of escaping the house alive..."--Jacket flap.

Jane, a plain and penniless orphan in nineteenth-century England, accepts employment as a governess at Thornfield Hall and soon finds herself in love with her melancholy employer, Mr. Edward Rochester, a man with a terrible secret. Includes an introduction, explanatory notes, and excerpts of nineteenth-century reviews.

Seventeen-year-old Imogene Rockford turned away from her family and their English country manor after her parents' death, but assumes her duty as the new Duchess of Wickersham despite threats and strange occurrences.