In July, 1916, Chet Roscow is fascinated by news accounts of the great white shark said to be attacking people along the New Jersey shore not far from his home, but when he goes swimming in Matawan Creek he discovers the truth of the stories.

Lina is a fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. She's just like any other girl. Until one night in 1941, when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother are taken slowly north to a Siberian work camp, where they are forced to dig for beets and fight for...

Eleven-year-old Primrose, living in a small fishing village in British Columbia, recounts her experiences and all that she learns about human nature and the unpredictability of life in the months after her parents are lost at sea.

Having lost his mother and his hearing in a short time, twelve-year-old Ben leaves his Minnesota home in 1977 to seek the father he never knew in New York City, and meets there Rose, who is also longing for something missing from her life. Ben's story is told in words; Rose's in pictures.

When the Great Depression takes almost everything they own, Ellie's family is forced to leave their home in town and start over in the untamed forests of nearby Echo Mountain. Ellie has found a welcome freedom, and a love of the natural world, in her new life on the mountain. But there is little joy, even for Ellie, as her family struggles with the aftermath of an accident that has left her father in a coma. An accident unfairly blamed on Ellie. Determined...

A loyal dog promises to protect his young mistress and her home from any danger.

Eleven-year-old Donald thinks nothing could be worse than missing a pop fly in a baseball game that most of his Montana town was watching, but through the end of 1947 and beginning of 1948, he suffers one humiliation after another.

"Sixteen-year-old Mattie Gokey has a word for everything, and big dreams of being a writer but little hope of seeing them come true. With the fresh pain of her mother's death lingering over her and the only out from her impoverished life being marriage to the handsome but dull local rich boy, Maddie flees from her home. She takes a job at the Glenmore, where hotel guest Grace Brown entrusts her with the task of burning a secret bundle of letters....

Ira and Zac, veterans of the foster system, are being uprooted again. This time their destination is Skilly House, a London-based home for children. There, Ira, eleven, and Zac, nine, befriend the staff and other kids, all the while hoping to find their own family to belong to. When they're invited to spend a holiday with Martha, a retiree, the visit opens the children's eyes to what life in a permanent home might be like. But a tragic accident soon...

"The mighty engines of Anchorage have been rusted and dead for years. The derelict city no longer roams the Ice Wastes, but has settled on the edge of the land that was once America. Tom and Hester are happy in the safety of a static settlement, but their daughter Wren is ripe for rebellion. A dangerously charming submarine pirate offers her escape - but he wants something in return. The ancient Tin Book that she steals for him ignites a conflict...