Conly, Jane Leslie

To help her deal with her separation from her family, worry about her mother's serious operation, and suspicions about a new friend's abusive father, twelve-year-old Dawn creates an imaginary world while spending the summer of 1958 with her great-aunt and uncle in rural North Carolina.

Benjamin Franklin Orville's life is torn asunder when a simple trip to the market goes awry and Benjy is taken by captors with a group of German immigrants to work with the poorly kept crew of the "Ella Dawn," a North Atlantic oystering vessel.

When two brothers steal a rabbit from a back yard in the rich part of town, the incident brings about their collision with other children from a background very different from their own.

Timothy Frisby, a field mouse, teams up with the adventurous young rat Racso as together they try to prevent the destruction of a secret community of rats that can read and write.

Timothy Frisby, a field mouse, teams up with the adventurous young rat Racso as together they try to prevent the destruction of a secret community of rats that can read and write.

A sister and brother spend a largely unsupervised summer in a cabin near a river, where they befriend an elderly man with much to teach them and where they try to come to terms with their parents' failing marriage and make decisions about their own futures.