When his best friend drowns while they are both swimming in a treacherous river that they had promised never to go near, Joel is devastated and terrified at having to tell both sets of parents the terrible consequences of their disobedience.

After her mother's death, Julie goes to live with her Aunt Cordelia, a spinster school teacher, where she experiences many emotions and changes, including love, jealousy, and tragedy, as she grows into a young woman.

Now that the four abandoned Tillerman children are settled in with their grandmother, Dicey finds that their new beginnings require love, trust, humor, and courage.

Manolo Olivar has to make a decision: to follow in his famous father's shadow and become a bullfighter, or to follow his heart and become a doctor.

A young Black boy learns the pain of humiliation and anger when his father is given an unjust jail sentence for stealing a ham from a white man. Learning to read and to discover that things do not die but become part of other things brings the youngster new hope.

As a slag heap, the result of strip mining, creeps closer to his house in the Ohio hills, fifteen-year-old M. C. is torn between trying to get his family away and fighting for the home they love.

In his letters to his favorite author, ten-year-old Leigh reveals his problems in coping with his parents' divorce, being the new boy in school, and generally finding his own place in the world.

"Welcome to the story of Despereaux Tilling, a mouse who is in love with music, stories, and a princess named Pea. It is also the story of a rat called Roscuro, who lives in the darkness and covets a world filled with light. And it is the story of Miggery Sow, a slow-witted serving girl who harbors a simple, impossible wish. These three characters are about to embark on a journey that will lead them down into a horrible dungeon, up into a glittering...

A ten-year-old disabled boy in fourteen-century England proves his courage and earns recognition from the King.

The thirteen-year-old daughter of an English country knight keeps a journal in which she records the events of her life, particularly her longing for adventures beyond the usual role of women and her efforts to avoid being married off.