Life as a ship's boy aboard HMS Dolphin is a dream come true for Jacky Faber. Gone are the days of scavenging for food and fighting for survival on the streets of 18th-century London. Instead, Jacky is becoming a skilled and respected sailor as the crew pursues pirates on the high seas. There's only one problem: Jacky is a girl. And she will have to use every bit of her spirit, wit, and courage to keep the crew from discovering her secret.

Henry "Monty" Montague doesn't care that his roguish passions are far from suitable for the gentleman he was born to be. But as Monty embarks on his grand tour of Europe, his quests for pleasure and vice are in danger of coming to an end. Not only does his father expect him to take over the family's estate upon his return, but Monty is also nursing an impossible crush on his best friend and traveling companion, Percy.

Jaques Papier has the sneaking suspicion that everyone except his sister Fleur hates him. Teachers ignore him when his hand is raised in class, he is never chosen for sports teams, and his parents often need to be reminded to set a place for him at the dinner table. But he is shocked when he finally learns the truth: He is Fleur's imaginary friend! When he convinces Fleur to set him free, he begins a surprising and touching, and always funny quest to find himself - to figure out who Jacques Papier truly is, and where he belongs.

A plucky farm boy will find more than he's bargained for on his quest to awaken the sleeping princess in her cursed tower. First there's the Dark Lord, who wishes for the boy's untimely death...and also very fine cheese. Then there's a bard without a song in her heart but with a very adorable and fuzzy tail, an assassin who fears not the night but is terrified of chickens, and a mighty fighter more frightened of her sword than of her chain-mail bikini. This journey will lead to sinister umlauts, a trash-talking goat, and the Dread Necromancer Steve....

Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes is the utterly beguiling tale of a ten-year-old blind orphan who has been forced into a life of crime. One fateful afternoon, Peter steals a mysterious box that contains three magical pairs of eyes. When he tries the first pair, he is instantly transported to a hidden island where he is presented with a special quest: to travel beyond the known world and rescue a lost kingdom from its treacherous ruler....

Life in a small town can be pretty boring when everyone avoids you like the plague. But after their father unwittingly sends them to stay with an aunt who’s away on holiday, the Hardscrabble children take off on an adventure that begins in the seedy streets of London and ends in a peculiar sea village where legend has it a monstrous creature lives who is half boy and half animal.

In this wickedly dark, unusual, and compelling novel, Ellen Potter masterfully tells the tale of one deliciously strange family and a secret that changes everything.

Martin Moone is 11 and completely fed up with being the only boy in a family of girls. He's desperate for a decent wingman to help him navigate his idiotic life. So when best mate Padraic suggests Martin get an imaginary friend - or IF for short - he decides to give it a go. His first attempt is Loopy Lou, a hyperactive goofball who loves writing rubbish rap songs. But Martin soon gets fed up with Lou and decides to trade in his IF for someone a little less wacky.

To escape from a life of petticoats and politeness, Hilary answers a curious advertisement for a pirate crew and suddenly finds herself swept up in a seafaring adventure that may or may not involve a map without an X, a magical treasure that likely doesn't exist, a rogue governess who insists on propriety, a crew of misfit scallywags, and the most treacherous - and unexpected - villain on the High Seas. Will Hilary find the treasure in time? Will she become a true pirate after all? And what will become of the gargoyle?

The plan was simple. Ethan Cheeseman, along with his three smart, polite, and relatively odor-free children, would travel back in time to end a family curse and save their mother. Now that the LVR (a super-secret time machine) is working, it’s easy peasy. Except they didn’t account for one basic rule of science: Murphy’s Law — if something can go wrong, it will.

Praised as “a timeless tale” by Booklist in a starred review, this Newbery Honor book by Margi Preus explores the cultural divide between the East and West circa 1841. When Manjiro, a Japanese teenager, is thrown from his fishing boat during a storm, he’s rescued by an American whaling ship. Befriending the ship’s captain, Manjiro decides to travel with the crew to Massachusetts. But years later, when Manjiro attempts to return to his homeland, he’s imprisoned as an outsider

Bronte Mettlestone's parents ran away to have adventures when she was a baby, leaving her to be raised by her aunt Isabelle and the Butler. She's had a perfectly pleasant childhood of afternoon teas and riding lessons - and no adventures, thank you very much. But Bronte's parents have left extremely detailed (and bossy) instructions for Bronte in their will. The instructions must be followed to the letter, or disaster will befall Bronte's home. She is to travel the kingdoms and empires, perfectly alone, delivering special gifts to her 10 other aunts.

Callie Vee, Travis, Granddaddy, and the whole Tate clan are back in this charming follow-up to Newbery Honor-winner The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. Travis keeps bringing home strays. And Callie has her hands full keeping the wild animals-her brother included-away from her mother's critical eye. Whether it's wrangling a rogue armadillo or stray dog, a guileless younger brother or standoffish cousin, the trials and tribulations of Callie Vee will have listeners laughing and crying and cheering for this most endearing heroine.

The year is 1819, and the renowned chef Owen Wedgwood has been kidnapped by the ruthless pirate Mad Hannah Mabbot. He will be spared, she tells him, as long as he puts exquisite food in front of her every Sunday without fail. To appease the red-haired captain, Wedgwood gets cracking with the meager supplies on board. His first triumph at sea is actual bread, made from a sourdough starter that he leavens in a tin under his shirt throughout a roaring battle, as men are cutlassed all around him. Soon he's making tea-smoked eel and brewing pineapple-banana cider.

Nestled inside a lighthouse, Great Rapscott School for the Daughters of Busy Parents takes its motto from Amelia Earhart: Adventure is worthwhile in itself. Headmistress Ms. Rapscott couldn't agree more, but her students, who are shipped to the school in boxes, could use a little convincing. Still, despite their initial reluctance, the students are soon soaring through the sky and getting lost on purpose.

Fresh from Miss Hepplewhite's Young Ladies' Academy, 16-year-old Jane Peck has come to the unknown wilds of the Northwest to be wedded to her true love, William Baldt, her idol from childhood. But her socially correct upbringing in straitlaced Philadelphia is hardly preparation for the colorful characters and crude life that await her in Shoal Water Bay in the Washington Territory.