A club-footed orphan struggles for independence, his intellectual development and his attempt to become an artist.

"Three orphans journey westward from New York City to...Montana, hoping for a better life where beautiful wild horses roam free. Fate guides them toward the ranch of a family stricken by loss. Nara, the daughter of a successful cattleman, has grown into abrusque spinster who refuses the kids on sight...[but] when Charles is jailed for freeing wild horses that were rounded up for slaughter, and an abusive mother from New York shows up to take the youngest,...

Still pursued by the evil Count Olaf, the Baudelaire orphans attempt to reach a very important VFD meeting, but first they must travel in a rattletrap submarine to the Gorgonian Grotto, a dangerous underwater cave, in search of the sugar bowl.

"In the aftermath of the Civil War, an aging itinerant news reader agrees to transport a young captive of the Kiowa back to her people in this exquisitely rendered, morally complex, multilayered novel of historical fiction from the author of Enemy Women that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust. In the wake of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings from newspapers...

The Aldens head back to Mystery Ranch for another summer! They are thrilled to learn their friend Mike has moved to Yellow Sands―a new town nearby. But when a house fire breaks out and Mike is blamed for starting it, the Aldens must find the real culprit to help their friend.

Carpenter gets a mysterious phone call from a good friend, policeman Pete Stanton, asking him to drop everything, drive to an unfamiliar address, and bring his girlfriend, Laurie Collins. Pete has just discovered the body of ex-convict Danny Diza. Upstairs are Danny's now orphaned eight-year-old son and basset hound. And that, Andy discovers, is why he and Laurie were called to the scene-- Pete wants them to take care of the boy and the dog so they...

"Inspired by a true story, this is the unforgettable story of a young boy named Ernest, set during the 1909 Seattle world's fair called the Alaska Yukon Pacific Expo. It is a time when the magical wonders of technology on display at the expo future seems limitless. But for Ernest, a half-Chinese orphan who found his way to America through a last desperate act of his beloved mother, every door is closed. A charity student at a boarding school, he has...

Winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize for Fiction Life of Pi is at once a realistic, rousing adventure and a meta-tale of survival that explores the redemptive power of storytelling and the transformative nature of fiction. It's a story, as one character puts it, to make you believe in God. A fabulist novel that combines the delight of Kipling's Just So Stories with the metaphysical adventure of Jonah and the Whale.

In this story inspired by Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," Ana Dakkar, a freshman at Harding-Pencroft Academy, a five-year high school that graduates the best marine scientists, naval warriors, navigators, and underwater explorers in the world, makes astounding discoveries about her heritage and puts her leadership skills to the test against deadly enemies from a rival school.