The Witch of Blackbird Pond with related readings.

    At the outbreak of WWII, with her father, an army general overseas, adolescent Jenifer musters her wits to housekeep for her large and lively family in the first of this famous series.

    Determined to be herself, not the "perfect" girl her mother hopes for, Julia chooses to live with her grandmother and her divorced father in a little town in the Cascade Mountains.But tiny Moon Valley lacks the one thing Julia desperately craves: a good music teacher. When a girl dressed in white appears among the cattails, singing Puccini arias in a haunting voice, Julia knows she must meet her and find out where she studies. But the girl always manages to slip away and vanish among the trees. There are hints that the people of Moon Valley may have the answer to the mystery, and surely Luke Sutherland, Julia's silent, blue-eyed neighbor, knows more about this elusive person than he will admit.With her latest novel, Cattail Moon, award-winning Jean Thesman has created a romance, a mystery, and an absorbing story of a young girl who is learning to claim her decisions and choices as her own.

    But after her father's death, the bad luck piles up: departing workers, impossible debts, an overbearing uncle. Then a stranger named Jack Spinner offers a tempting proposition: He can turn straw into gold thread, for the small price of her mother's ring. As Charlotte is drawn deeper into her bargains with Spinner-and a romance with the local banker-she must unravel the truth of the curse on the mill and save the community she's always called home.

    The only guide naïve Bliss has to her new environment is what she’s seen on The Andy Griffith Show. But Mayberry is poor preparation for Crestview Academy, an elite school where the tensions of the present and the dark secrets of the past threaten to simmer into violence. Openhearted, naïve Bliss is happy to be friends with anyone. That’s not the way it has ever worked at Crestview, and soon Bliss is at the center of a struggle for power between three girls—two living and one long dead.

    But Marty is trapped in an unhappy marriage and nothing can come of it. Meanwhile, Peggy is desperate to marry her long-term boyfriend Pete. But Peggy’s staunchly Catholic parents would never accept a Protestant son-in-law, and she decides the only way to resolve her issues is to escape to a place where nobody can find her.With no job, no family to stay for and no hope of a future with Marty, an unexpected job offer from America offers Irene a lifeline. But it would mean never seeing Marty again. Will Irene and Peggy solve their problems by running away – or should they follow their hearts back home to Liverpool? An inspirational tale of love and friendship, perfect for fans of Kitty Neale and Lyn Andrews.

    In Portland, Oregon, Julie moves through her days in a series of negatives: the skaters she doesn’t think are cute, the trinkets she doesn’t buy at the craft fair, the umbrella she refuses to carry despite the incessant rain. Her family life is routine and restrained, and no one talks about Julie’s older brother, a one-time Olympic-hopeful swimmer who now lives in self-imposed exile in Berlin. Julie has never considered swimming herself, until Alexis, the girls’ swim team captain, tries to recruit her. It’s a dare, and a flirtation—and a chance for Julie to find her brother, or to finally let him go. Anything could happen when her body hits water.

    Ruth has a secret that she can’t hide forever. Dora wonders if she can ever truly escape where she comes from, even when good luck strikes. Alyce is trying to reconcile her desire to dance, with the life she’s always known on her family’s fishing boat. Hank and his brothers decide it’s safer to run away than to stay home—until one of them ends up in terrible danger. Four very different lives are about to become entangled.

    So when her mother, who has been raising the children alone, leaves her small family, Anna hides the evidence from the authorities. But Anna's mother has committed suicide, and eventually the children are placed with foster parents. Desperate for answers, Anna travels to Mississippi to meet her grandparents and learn the truth about her own biracial heritage.

    More than anything, Lopi wants to find someone to really connect with, someone to love—but short of that, she wants to have sex. She’s already figured out how to graduate a year early, but the rest isn’t so easy. For one thing, her mother, Vivian, isn’t just crazy: she’s young, vivacious, and beautiful. No one can resist Viv’s charms, but Lopi knows it’s all just an act. Viv is only pretending to be happy, trying to ignore Lopi and the horrible accident that changed everything between them. Lopi tries to pretend too, as she navigates the murky waters of sex and love and growing up, but she can’t fool herself—Lopi has a secret that sets her apart: the accident was her fault, she is evil . . .

    Purely an advisory role, they are told.Harry Delhaze is on a lonely path to self-destruction; George Marriott has promises to keep. It seems to them like the easiest money they’ll ever make.They couldn’t be more wrong.They are forced to battle frostbite in the Atlas Mountains and endure the baking deserts of the sub-Sahara; they are traded, kidnapped, and used as pawns in high-stakes political rivalries; they encounter women who worship cannons for fertility and magician-warlords who talk to the dead and play bloody games of chess with living slaves; and the three muzzle-loading cannon the Sultan has hired them to command are antiques that could explode in their faces at any moment.Then there is the Lord of the Atlas himself, Amastan el-Karim, who harbors a shocking secret that could cost them both their lives – or give one of them a reason to live again.An epic historical adventure that evokes the beautiful and the barbaric of nineteenth century Morocco that transports the reader to a now-lost world of ancient medinas, crumbling palaces, and wild mountain passes.

    Paris, Milan, London—Shannon has been everywhere, but somewhere along the way, she realizes she’s really…nowhere.Having graduated from high school and about to board yet another flight for yet another destination, Shannon is offered an alternative: stay in Portland, Oregon, with her parents’ close friend and help his law firm investigate a group of strangers living near the local university. A will with a substantial inheritance is being contested, and Shannon’s task is to gather information on the unlikely recipients of the money.Using an assumed name and working as a waitress in a diner, Shannon finds herself entirely on her own for the first time in her life; and as the long summer days go by, she tries to sort out who she really is and what her future holds.Originally published in 1968 and newly released as part of Nancy Pearl’s Book Crush Rediscoveries, Greensleeves is a smart and timeless tale of how far people must go to find themselves.

    But his peaceful life is shattered when his sister, Nessa, mysteriously disappears. He sets off to find her and soon realizes that he and his traveling companions, including the feisty young archer Breo-Saight, have become involved in something much larger and more sinister than he had imagined.

    Her life back in England with her suffragette mother and liberated aunts certainly couldn't be called normal, but buried deep in the beautiful Austrian countryside, Ellen discovers an eccentric world occupied by wild children and even wilder teachers, experimental dancers and a tortoise on wheels. And then there is the particularly intriguing, enigmatic, and very handsome Marek, part-time gardener and fencing teacher. Ellen is instantly attracted to the mysterious gardener, but Hitler's Reich is already threatening their peaceful world, and only when she discovers Marek's true identity and his dangerous mission does Ellen realize the depth of her feelings for him - and the danger their newfound love faces in the shadow of war.

    She herself was sobbing tearlessly....Her only prayer was still, "I don't want to die." Oh, please, God, don't let me die, she thought. I've never even had a chance to live.Bella, newly arrived in New York from Italy, gets a job at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. There, along with hundreds of other immigrants, she works long hours at a grueling job under terrible conditions. Yetta, a coworker from Russia, has been crusading for a union, and when factory conditions worsen, she helps workers rise up in a strike. Wealthy Jane learns of the plight of the workers and becomes involved with their cause. Bella and Yetta are at work--and Jane is visiting the factory--on March 25, 1911, when a spark ignites some cloth and the building is engulfed in fire, leading to one of the worst workplace disasters ever. Margaret Peterson Haddix draws on extensive historical research to bring the tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire to tangible life through her thrilling story of Bella, Yetta, and Jane.