Swift, a young wolf cub, lives with his pack in the mountains learning to hunt, competing with his brothers and sisters for hierarchy, and watching over a new litter of cubs. Then a rival pack attacks, and Swift and his family scatter. Alone and scared, Swift must flee and find a new home. His journey takes him a remarkable 1,000 miles across the Pacific Northwest. The trip is full of peril, and Swift encounters forest fires, hunters, highways, and hunger before he finds his new home.

Odder spends her days off the coast of central California, practicing her underwater acrobatics and spinning the quirky stories for which she’s known. She’s a fearless daredevil, curious to a fault. But when Odder comes face-to-face with a hungry great white shark, her life takes a dramatic turn, one that will challenge everything she believes about herself—and about the humans who hope to save her.

Welcome to the imaginative brain of Omar! Omar and his family have just moved, and he is NOT excited about starting at a new school. What if the work is too hard or the kids are mean or the teacher is a zombie alien?! But when Omar makes a new best friend, things start looking up. That is, until a Big Mean Bully named Daniel makes every day a nightmare! Daniel even tells Omar that all Muslims are going to be kicked out of the country.... Could that possibly be true? Luckily, Omar's enormous imagination and goofy family help him get through life's ups and downs.

Holy unanticipated occurrences! It begins, as the best superhero stories do, with a tragic accident that has unexpected consequences. The squirrel never saw the vacuum cleaner coming, but self-described cynic Flora Belle Buckman, who has read every issue of the comic book Terrible Things Can Happen to You!, is the just the right person to step in and save him. What neither can predict is that Ulysses (the squirrel) has been born anew, with powers of strength, flight, and misspelled poetry - and that Flora will be changed too.

Marisol Rainey's mother was born in the Philippines. Marisol's father works and lives part-time on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. And Marisol, who has a big imagination and likes to name inanimate objects, has a tree in her backyard she calls Peppina . . . but she's way too scared to climb it. This all makes Marisol the only girl in her small Louisiana town with a mother who was born elsewhere and a father who lives elsewhere (most of the time)—the only girl who's fearful of adventure and fun.

There are two rules when it comes to the dragons: don’t let them out of the bag and don’t feed them anything sweet! When Jaxon is sent to spend the day with a mean old lady his mother calls Ma, he finds out she’s not his grandmother—but she is a witch! She needs his help delivering baby dragons to a magical world where they’ll be safe. Hear about Jax’s first three adventures in this collection!

For Bixby Alexander Tam (nicknamed Bat), life tends to be full of surprises - some of them good, some not so good. Today, though, is a good-surprise day. Bat's mom, a veterinarian, has brought home a baby skunk, which she needs to take care of until she can hand him over to a wild-animal shelter. But the minute Bat meets the kit, he knows they belong together. And he's got one month to show his mom that a baby skunk might just make a pretty terrific pet.

Twelve-year-old Sophie Brown feels like a fish out of water when she and her parents move from Los Angeles to the farm they’ve inherited from a great-uncle. But farm life gets more interesting when a cranky chicken appears and Sophie discovers the hen can move objects with the power of her little chicken brain: jam jars, the latch to her henhouse, the entire henhouse.

Maya's nervous about fifth grade. She tries to keep calm by reminding herself she knows what to expect. But then she learns that this year won't be anything like the last. For the first time since kindergarten, her best friends Jada and MJ are placed in a different class without her, and introverted Maya has trouble making new friends. She tries to put on a brave face since they are in fifth grade now, but Maya is nervous! Just when too much seems to be changing, she finds a robot named Ralph in the back of Mr. Mac's convenience store closet.

Grown-ups lie. That's one truth Beans knows for sure. He and his gang know how to spot a whopper a mile away, because they are the savviest bunch of barefoot conchs (that means "locals") in all of Key West. Not that Beans really minds. It's 1934, the middle of the Great Depression. With no jobs on the island and no money anywhere, who can really blame the grown-ups for telling a few tales? Besides, Beans isn't anyone's fool. In fact he has plans. Big plans. And the consequences might surprise even Beans himself.

Eleven-year-old Simon Barnes dreams of becoming a world-famous rapper that everyone calls Notorious D.O.G. But for now, he's just a Chicago fifth grader who's small for his age and afraid to use his voice. Simon prefers to lay low at school and at home, even though he's constantly spitting rhymes in his head. But when his new teacher assigns the class an oral presentation on something that affects their community, Simon must face his fears.

Mia Tang has a lot of secrets. Number one: She lives in a motel, not a big house. Every day, while her immigrant parents clean the rooms, 10-year-old Mia manages the front desk of the Calivista Motel and tends to its guests. Number two: Her parents hide immigrants. And if the mean motel owner, Mr. Yao, finds out they've been letting them stay in the empty rooms for free, the Tangs will be doomed. Number three: She wants to be a writer. But how can she when her mom thinks she should stick to math because English is not her first language?

Eleven-year-old math prodigy Ada Lovelace, daughter of the famous and infamous poet Lord Byron, is a genius. Isolated, awkward and socially inept - but a genius. Mary Godwin, age 14, daughter of radical philosopher William Godwin and feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, is a romantic. It has been arranged for Mary and Ada to be tutored by the young man who calls himself Percy B. Snagsby, a nervous fellow who may or may not be a spy.

Every morning in the Japanese town of Shibuya, Professor Ueno awakens and is greeted by his loyal Akita dog, Hachiko. They enjoy a breakfast together before the professor leaves to catch the train to the school where he teaches. And Hachiko sits at the station eagerly awaiting his master’s return. Then one afternoon Professor Ueno does not return. And Hachiko waits. Days and weeks pass and still no one - not even the young boy Yasuo who comes to care for him - can persuade the faithful dog to leave his post. Years go by and yet still he waits.

Elliot Eisner isn't exactly thrilled with the first day at his new school. His class is going on a field trip to a creepy forest called the Pine Barrens. The trip is being led by Professor Fauna, the weirdest teacher Elliot has ever met. And the only kid who will talk to Elliot, Uchenna Devereaux, isn’t afraid of danger. She likes danger. Elliot and Uchenna are about to become part of a secret group of adventurers, the Unicorn Rescue Society, whose goal is to protect and defend the world’s mythical creatures.

Eleven-year-old Amelia Ashford—Millie to her friends (if she had any, that is)—doesn't realize just how much adventure awaits her when she's given the opportunity of a lifetime: to spend the night in Amelia Earhart's childhood home with five other girls. Make that five strangers. Once at Amelia's house in Atchison, Kansas, Millie stumbles upon a display of Amelia's famous flight goggles. She can't believe her good luck, since they're about to be relocated to a fancy museum in DC. But her luck changes quickly when the goggles disappear, and Millie was the last to see them.

Every morning in the Japanese town of Shibuya, Professor Ueno awakens and is greeted by his loyal Akita dog, Hachiko. They enjoy a breakfast together before the professor leaves to catch the train to the school where he teaches. And Hachiko sits at the station eagerly awaiting his master’s return. Then one afternoon Professor Ueno does not return. And Hachiko waits. Days and weeks pass and still no one - not even the young boy Yasuo who comes to care for him - can persuade the faithful dog to leave his post. Years go by and yet still he waits.

Acclaimed novelist Jewell Parker Rhodes is an American Book Award winner. Rhodes’ Ninth Ward is a stunning tale set against the horrors of Hurricane Katrina. Orphaned 12-year-old Lanesha lives with Mama Ya-Ya, the midwife who birthed her, in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward. Although Lanesha is different—able to see ghosts like that of her dead mother—she never feels unloved, an empowerment that helps her survive the devastating storm.

Perfect for fans of Charlotte’s Web and The One and Only Ivan, Saving Winslow is an uplifting modern classic in the making about a young boy who befriends an ailing newborn donkey and nurses him back to health, from New York Times bestseller and Newbery Medal winner Sharon Creech.

She was named Omakakiins, or Little Frog, because her first step was a hop. Omakakiins and her family live on an island in Lake Superior. Though there are growing numbers of white people encroaching on their land, life continues much as it always has. But the satisfying rhythms of their life are shattered when a visitor comes to their lodge one winter night, bringing with him an invisible enemy that will change things forever—but that will eventually lead Omakakiins to discover her calling.