Fleeing her strict grandmother's home in 1963 Mississippi, nine-year-old Starla Claudelle becomes an unlikely companion to an African-American woman at whose side she learns harsh lessons about segregation and family.

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

—and Quite Deadly . . .

Eric Banyon, better known as Bedlam's Bard, is finally about to graduate from Julliard and enter the Real World and so, with the help of a psychiatrist who specializes in the problems of magicians, he's finally coming to terms with his past. But a spur-of-the-moment trip home to Boston to visit his parents brings him more trouble than even Eric thought possible.

Meanwhile, his Bardic

...

When her father, the duke, decides to remarry in the hopes of producing an heir to the throne, Jessica must learn to cope with her jealous and evil stepmother, but she flees to London after the situation becomes dangerous.

Fleeing into the woods believing that they have accidentally murdered an abusive parent, two young boys, unaware that they have become the focus of a desperate search, navigate dangerous natural threats in their effort to survive.

"Lillian Walsh and Grace Bennett have learned so much already about caring for children in distress. It hasn't been easy, but it becomes even more difficult when they suddenly discover that three children have run away. Concerned for the trio's safety, the sisters will do all they can to find the children. But the runaways are not the only thing putting the future of the children's home in question. Lillian is faced with choosing between her dreams...

In "Snow," Jessica flees to London when her jealous stepmother turns murderous; and in "Beauty Sleep," Aurore encounters Oswald, whom she has replaced as the king's heir, a year before a magical curse will send her into a century-long sleep.

Feeling most alive when he's playing the blues with his grandfather, Clayton is devastated when his grandfather dies and his mother forbids him from playing music, losses that compel him to run away and join bluesmen on the road.

"Named for a picture Bible given to Eve's little brother Jack, [this book] is loosely structured around events and characters that often appear in collections of Bible stories intended for young readers. These narrative touchstones are imbedded in a backdrop of environmental and psychological distress as ... children reject ... parents for their emotional and moral failures--in part as normal teenagers must, and in part for their generation's passivity...

"From Percival Everett-a recipient of the NBCC Lifetime Achievement Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Booker Prize, and numerous PEN awards-comes James, a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby...

Young Charles Magnus Ven Polypheme is sent on a secret mission within the walls of the Gated City, a former penal colony in the land of Serendair, where he and his friends face kidnapping and even worse dangers from the ruthless Thief Queen, who is trying to reclaim her runaway daughter.