Fourteen-year-old Joan Skraggs, just like the heroines in her beloved novels, yearns for real life and true love. But what hope is there for adventure, beauty, or art on a hardscrabble farm in Pennsylvania where the work never ends? Over the summer of 1911, Joan pours her heart out into her diary as she seeks a new, better life for herself--because maybe, just maybe, a hired girl cleaning and cooking for six dollars a week can become what a farm girl...

"1890, Atlanta. By day, seventeen-year-old Jo Kuan works as a lady's maid for the cruel Caroline Payne, the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Atlanta. But by night, Jo moonlights as the pseudonymous author of a newspaper advice column for 'the genteel Southern lady'"-- 1890, Atlanta. Jo Kuan works as a lady's maid for the cruel daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Atlanta. But by night she moonlights as the pseudonymous author of a newspaper...

"16-year-old Valya knows what it feels like to fly. She's a pilot who's always felt more at home soaring through the sky than down on earth. But since the Germans surrounded Stalingrad, Valya's been forced to stay on the ground and watch her city crumble ... [et al.]."--Back cover.

In 1757 England, clever but unschooled Thomas Rose helps the spirited Ling seek Belladonna, the horse she rode in the circus, and in their quest they meet painter George Stubbs who euthanizes animals to study their anatomy.

In Bolivia in 1999, when their father is unjustly arrested and their mother leaves, Francisco, seventeen, and his sister Pilar, eight, must move to the dirty, dehumanizing, and corrupt prison. 1999, Bolivia. Francisco's father is arrested on false charges and sent to prison by a corrupt system. Now Francisco and his young sister must move into prison with their father. There, they find a world unlike anything they've ever known. Prison life is dirty,...

Vienna. 1936. Three young friends--Leo, Elsa, and Max--spend a perfect day together, unaware that around them Europe is descending into a growing darkness and that events will soon mean that they are ripped apart from each other as their lives take very different directions... Inspired by a true story, this is an extraordinary novel that is as powerful as it is heartbreaking and shows the bonds of love, family and friendship allow glimmers of hope...

Determined to stand up for their rights, eleven-year-old Rufus, a Black boy, and his friends participate in the 1963 civil rights protests in Birmingham, Alabama. Rufus Jackson Jones is from Birmingham, the place Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called the most segregated place in the country. A place that in 1963 is full of civil rights activists including Dr. King. The adults are trying to get more attention to their cause--to show that separate is not...

At Swaziland's Keziah Christian Academy, where the wealth and color of one's father determines one's station, once-popular Adele bonds with poor Lottie over a book and a series of disasters.

In early 1940s Los Angeles, Mexican Americans Marisela and Lorena work in canneries all day, then jitterbug with sailors all night with their zoot suit wearing younger brother, Ray, as escort until the night racial violence leads to murder. Includes historical note.

In 1935, ten-year-old Alex Maki of Bainbridge Island, Washington, is horrified to discover that his new pen pal, Charlie Lévy of Paris, France, is a girl, but in spite of his initial reluctance, their letters continue over the years and they fight for their friendship even as Charlie endures the Nazi occupation and Alex leaves his family in an internment camp and joins the Army.