A suspenseful and heartfelt story about an era whose uncertainties, controversies, and dangers will seem anything but distant to contemporary readers.If thirteen-year-old Marty Rafner had his way, he'd spend the summer of 1953 warming the bench for his baseball team, listening to Yankees games on the radio, and avoiding preparations for his bar mitzvah. Instead, he has to deal with FBI agents staking out his house because his parents—professors at the local college—are suspected communist sympathizers. Marty knows what happens to communists, or Reds, as his friends call them: They lose their jobs, get deported...or worse. Two people he's actually met, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, have been convicted of being communist spies, and they're slated to be executed in two months.Marty just wants everything to go back to normal, but that's impossible thanks to the rumors that his parents are traitors. As his friends and teammates...

In a new town, Dovi's family befriends a young boy who was abandoned at their restaurant Dovi Chandler collects yearbooks. She has them from all over the country: mementos of every time her parents uprooted her to try out a new town, and a new crackpot business venture. They've managed apartment houses, tried to save failing bookstores, even sold Tupperware, but all it's ever gotten them is debt and a new yearbook for Dovi to add to the pile. It's not until her parents take over the Pig-Out Inn that Dovi feels ready to put down roots. It's just another truck-stop diner, but to Dovi it's home—and she soon discovers that she and her family aren't the only ones living there. Hiding out in one of the cabins is a nine-year-old boy named Tag. He was stashed there by his father, who is negotiating a painful divorce. Tag is an entrepreneurial genius, and his brilliant business schemes will offer Dovi and her mother a chance to make the Pig-Out Inn a...

Nightshade can be deadly. Hannah and Scooter's sprawling, ramshackle house is named for the lethal plant that grows in the dark woods behind it. Hannah knows she's not supposed to explore the forest or nearby Moonlight Lake. But she's feeling lonely and desperate for an adventure. And there Hannah meets Cady, a mysterious girl who promises everything Hannah's been missing. Only Cady has a secret: Cady wants Hannah all to herself. Soon Cady is copying Hannah's style so they can be more alike. She lies to Hannah's friends, insults Scooter, and begs Hannah to break her parents' rules and sneak out for a midnight swim. Hannah wants to believe Cady's just a little insecure. But when she discovers a cemetery beyond the lake with an eerily familiar headstone, she must decide whether to trust her new friend or dig for answers that may lead her to a watery grave . . .

A young girl fleeing Hitler takes refuge in Shanghai, where she learns that she must fight to survive Throughout tomboy Ilse's childhood, her mother has tried to force her to behave like a proper Austrian lady. But when Hitler annexes their country, the family flees, boarding a packed freighter and sailing around the world in search of a safe harbor. The United States refuses to take them, so they proceed to China and make a new home in steamy, mysterious Shanghai. Their lodgings are cramped, money is tight, and Ilse's father cannot find work—but Ilse is enchanted by the city's international flavor. In Shanghai's shadows she finds the adventure of a lifetime. When the Japanese occupy the city, Ilse and her brother begin working in an underground resistance cell. Each day, the city grows more dangerous, and Ilse must lie, cheat, and steal in order for her family to eat. She is a long way from Austria, but she will do whatever it takes to survive.

A terminally ill teenager is forced to choose between her religion and her life Adam doesn't think much of it when Miriam faints in class. She's an oddball, a student who hardly talks, never makes eye contact, and wears clothes that seem straight out of the nineteenth century. She says she feels OK, and he wants to believe her. But when she passes out while they're working on an English assignment, Adam takes Miriam to the last place she wants to go: the hospital. Miriam has bone cancer. She believes that God will heal her, but if He doesn't, she plans to let herself die. Miriam is a member of a devout religious sect in which women have little power and medicine is strictly forbidden. In order for Miriam to forgo treatment, Adam's father sues the state on her behalf—even as Adam himself tries to convince her to accept the doctors' help. As her illness rages on, Miriam will teach Adam the meaning of love and faith—and he will give her a...

When twelve-year-old Dana Shannon starts to strip away wallpaper in her family's old house, she's unprepared for the surprise that awaits her. A hidden room—containing a human skeleton! How did such a thing get there? And why was the tiny room sealed up?With the help of a diary found in the room, Dana learns her house was once a station on the Underground Railroad. The young woman whose remains Dana discovered was Lizbet Charles, a conductor and former slave. As the scene shifts between Dana's world and 1856, the story of the families that lived in the house unfolds. But as pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place, one haunting question remains—why did Lizbet Charles die?

A spunky young girl forms an unlikely friendship with a dying Chinese man while living in a group home For Greta, having light and carefree Hackey hanging around her mom is a lot more fun than having an ordinary dad. But Hackey isn't her father—he's more like a pimp, and no matter how friendly he is, he still treats Greta's mom like dirt. When the situation at home goes from bad to worse, Greta is moved into a home for at-risk children where she meets some of the most interesting girls she has ever known—and a shy young boy named Wing. Greta's riding a San Francisco cable car when she notices Wing carrying a huge basket of delicious-smelling food. It's for his grandfather, Old Man, who is dying in the Chinese hospital. Although they don't speak the same language, Greta and Old Man will become fast friends—two survivors, who refuse to give up on life.

I ask you, why do weird things always happen to me? Thirteen-year-old Dana Shannon is no stranger to intrigue. Not long ago she discovered a skeleton behind a wall in her family's house — a house in Lawrence, Kansas, that was once owned by a Quaker family, the Weavers. The diary Dana found in the sealed-off room revealed that the skeleton belonged to a runaway slave named Lizbeth Charles. Now Dana's house is a newly refurbished bed-and-breakfast, and the first guests are two shady characters who believed the house is hiding another secret. When Dana gets in their way, she becomes embroiled in a second mystery, this one involving slaves and the Weavers again, and — somehow - Delaware Indians. As Dana tried to fit the puzzle pieces together, alternate chapters tell the story of James Baylor Weaver, a thirteen-year-old boy, in 1857. It is up to James to fulfill a promise Lizbeth made before her death. He must travel hundreds of miles to...

This graveyard hides buried dolls...and buried secrets!The house at Cinder Creek hides many secrets. Shelby and Brian Tate have heard heated voices crying out in the night. They've noticed the unsettling way things move around on their own. But the most chilling thing about their new home is the cemetery someone's built out back. The graves are tiny, only big enough for dolls.AND THE DOLLS WON'T STAY BURIED.Soon Shelby's learning all about them. Betsy Anne's angelic appearance hides a raging fire behind her eyes, while Baby Daisy changes faces as quickly as she changes moods. And Miss Amelia's cracked porcelain skin and twisted lips only hint at the pain she once endured at the hands of a very angry girl. If Shelby can help the dolls find peace, she and her family might actually be happy at Cinder Creek. But if she can't—the dolls will have their revenge....