Cloudy. Wind N.W. FreshMr.Lincoln has arrived at last in Washington.... In one week, he inherits the trouble of this great, unhappy country. In one week, the responsibility will be his--whether we come together again a Union,or fall entirely to pieces. And here we sit, in Delaware, on the border between North and South, half the state hauling slaves, half the state opposed to the practice....It is hard enough to hold a family together. Poor Mr. Lincoln. It is in his hands to hold a whole country together.... My hands are calloused and strong from rowing and working the ropes, from lifting and carrying barrels of oil and scrubbing stone floors and spiral stairs, but I do not know if they are strong enough to hold Mother and Father together.Mr. Lincoln's hands... they must be a thousand times stronger than mine. Please God, give Mr. Lincoln strong hands.

    It is 1777 and Phoebe Olcott is thrown headlong into the horrors of war when her beloved cousin Gideon is hanged for being a British spy. When she finds a message left by Gideon containing the names of Loyalist families to be protected by the King's army, Phoebe knows she must deliver the message to the general at Fort Ticonderoga. She sets out into the wilderness and soon meets up with Jem, a young Loyalist travelling to the safety of British Canada. As they travel across the country facing rebel guns, wild animals and worse, Phoebe and Jem discover they have a growing attraction for each other. But her own mission cannot be ignored and Phoebe once again finds herself alone, freezing and near death before she is reunited with Jem on the shores of Lake Ontario.

    Includes "The Spell of the Yukon," "The Heart of the Sourdough," "While the Bannock Bakes," and "The Squaw Man."

    As a Chinese American, she has never felt her separateness more than now, in 1927, in this new place in West Virginia. Only Miss Lucy, their landlord and neighbor, seems welcoming....There's nothing coy about Yep's portrait of prejudice, which he sketches from several angles."--Booklist. "A pleasure to read, entertaining its audience even as it educates their hearts."--Horn Book.

    Seymour Reit re-creates the true story of Will Knox, a nineteen-year-old boy who undertook the daring and dangerous task of transporting 183 cannons from New York’s Fort Ticonderoga to Boston--in the dead of winter--to help George Washington win an important battle.

    To do that, she must finish eighth grade, then go on to high school. But her dream falters when the one-room school in her remote Colorado town shuts down. Her only hope is to keep the school open without anyone finding out. Yet even a secret school needs a teacher. Ida can't be it. . . . Or can she?In the spirit of The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, Newbery Medal winner Avi creates an inspiring story of a headstrong girl determined to control her own destiny.

    She is the beautiful daughter of an affluent estate manager, he the rebellious son of dispossessed peasants. With her father’s men in pursuit and a sizable price on Jim’s head, they board a ship set for Canada to start a new life and put the troubles of the old country behind them.Thousands of miles away in rural Ontario, they find the feuds and vendettas of Ireland are very much alive. Jim must make a place for his young family not just with his back, but with his fists.Fifteen years later, the Donnelly family have become one of the most powerful in Lucan Township, loved by some and hated by others. Jim and Johannah’s sons are notorious as both fighters and lovers and torment the townspeople, swinging shillelaghs, burning barns and seducing daughters.But certain citizens of Lucan have had enough. At midnight on February 3, 1880, a mob of thirty armed men in women’s clothing and carnival masks ride out for the Donnelly farm. Sustained by whisky and the blessings of the local priest, their goal is to wipe the Donnelly family from the face of the earth. Yet there is an eye witness and during the trial that follows, it becomes clear that in small town Ontario of the late 1800s, order is valued above truth.Eventful and conveyed with cinematic detail, Cursed! Blood of the Donnellys is an engaging and historically enlightening read.

    As her mother sinks deeper into alcoholism, the violent lodger with whom they share their one-room slum has been turning his attentions to Ettie, and she can’t stand it any longer. So when debonair Professor Jacob Protsky picks Ettie out of the crowd at a penny gaff, she is determined to seize her chance. Despite the warnings of her friends, Ettie goes to live with Protsky in Bow, assisting him with his skilful brand of spiritual clairvoyance. But when Ettie befriends Celia Tressing, she soon finds herself increasingly worried by events down the road in Whitechapel. A series of gruesome murders and whispers of a man called ‘Jack the Ripper’ have shaken even that resilient community, and outsiders like Protsky are prime suspects… An East End drama perfect for fans of Rosie Goodwin and Sheila Newberry.

    At first Frannie ignores Celeste, then the two girls are chosen to be in a special vocal ensemble and they find themselves becoming friends. But others are not so quick to accept the idea of racial integration, and Frannie discovers a dark secret from the town's past that threatens her friendship with Celeste.

    Around her revolves a vividly drawn cast of characters: her mother Adele; Misha, a Polish Jew; the willful, bitter Mother Superior; and her powerfully intelligent twin brothers, who sleep beside a map of the world they long to explore. Brilliantly imagined and buoyed by the clear-eyed perceptions of youth, it is an eloquent and profound story from a gifted writer.

    After 9/11, immigration regulations change, forcing the family to seek asylum.

    Lizzie, her mother, and her eight-year-old brother Karli have become especially attached to an orphaned elephant named Marlene. The bombing of Dresden is imminent and soon, so the zoo director explains that as a precautionary measure all the animals must be destroyed so that they’re not running wild through the city. Lizzie’s mother persuades the director to allow Marlene, the elephant, to come stay in the family’s garden.As predicted, Dresden is bombed, and the family, including Marlene, is forced from the city. Lizzie and her family aren’t alone. Thousands of Dresden residents are fleeing to find somewhere safe to stay. Lizzie’s mother has to find a different route out of the city to keep the elephant and the children safe from harm. Once they reach the abandoned home of their relatives, they come across Peter, a Canadian navigator who, by putting himself at risk of capture to save the family, gains their trust. This unlikely grouping of family, elephant, and enemy turned ally come together beautifully to illustrate the importance of love, resolve, and hope.

    Robert Raymond Cook, Ray Cook's son from his first marriage, was convicted of the crime, and had the infamy of becoming the last man hanged in Alberta. Forty-six years later, a troublesome character named Louise in a story that Betty Jane Hegerat finds herself inexplicably reluctant to write, becomes entangled in the childhood memory of hearing about that gruesome mass murder. Through four years of obsessively tracking the demise of the Cook family, and dancing around the fate of the fictional family, the problem that will not go away is how to bring the story to the page. A work of non-fiction about the Cooks and their infamous son, or a novel about Louise and her problem stepson? Both stories keep coming back to the boy. Part memoir, part investigation, part novella, part writer's journal, The Boy, is the author's final capitulation to telling the story with all of the troublesome questions unanswered.

    In the Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales series, author Nathan Hale channels his namesake to present history’s roughest, toughest, and craziest stories in the graphic novel format.One Dead Spy tackles the story of Hale himself, who was an officer and spy for the American rebels during the Revolutionary War. Author Hale highlights the unusual, gruesome, and just plain unbelievable truth of historical Nathan Hale—from his early unlucky days at Yale to his later unlucky days as an officer—and America during the Revolutionary War.

    A seemingly cold and dour spinster, her heart eventually softens to the loveable orphan girl. But for over a century readers have wondered, who was Marilla before Anne? In Louise Michalos's remarkable debut novel, readers are introduced to a spirited eighteen-year-old Marilla Cuthbert—a girl not unlike Anne herself—who is desperately in love, and whose whole life is spread before her. But when a moment of defiance brings life-changing consequences, a new Marilla begins to take shape, one who would learn to bear tragedy like a birthright, and loss as an inevitability, and who would hold steadfast to the secrets that could shatter the lives of everyone around her. Weaving its way from Marilla's early life in Avonlea to her coming-of-age in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and back, Marilla Before Anne is the story readers of Anne of Green Gables have longed for. Told with a refreshingly original East Coast voice, this exquisite, heartbreaking work of historical fiction takes readers on a journey back in time, to the Green Gables where Marilla Cuthbert lived, loved, and learned, long before Anne.