Meet Maxwell Kane, narrator of Freak the Mighty. He's a timid soul stuck in the body of a teenage giant with size 14 shoes. Haunted by a dark secret in his past, he hides out in his basement room, avoiding the world. But when a new kid moves in next door, Max's life changes forever. The two outcasts form the "normal" world team up to become "Freak the Mighty".

Esperanza Ortega possesses all the treasures a young girl in Aguascalientes, Mexico could want. But a sudden tragedy shatters that dream, forcing Esperanza and Mama to flee to California and settle in a Mexican farm labor camp. There they confront the challenges of hard work, acceptance by their own people, and economic difficulties brought on by the Great Depression. Pam Munoz Ryan eloquently portrays the Mexican workers' plight in this abundant and passionate novel.

Newbery Award-winner Gary Paulsen's best-known book comes to audio in this breathless, heart-gripping drama about a boy pitted against the wilderness with only a hatchet and a will to live. On his way to visit his recently divorced father in the Canadian mountains, thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson is the only survivor when the single-engine plane crashes. His body battered, his clothes in shreds, Brian must now stay alive in the boundless Canadian wilderness.

Ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her best friend Ellen Rosen often think of life before the war. It's now 1943, and their life in Copenhagen is filled with school, food shortages, and the Nazi soldiers marching through town. When the Jews of Denmark are "relocated," Ellen moves in with the Johansens and pretends to be one of the family. Soon Annemarie is asked to go on a dangerous mission to save Ellen's life.

Palmer LaRue is running out of birthdays. For as long as he can remember, he's dreaded the day he turns ten - the day he'll take his place beside all the other ten-year-old boys in town, the day he'll be a wringer. But Palmer doesn't want to be a wringer. It's one of the first things he learned about himself and it's one of the biggest things he has to hide. In Palmer's town being a wringer is an honor, a tradition passed down from father to son.

New York Times best-selling author Gordon Korman harkens back to his No More Dead Dogs days in this stand-alone that takes a tone more serious than you've ever heard from him before. A boy who's been a bully and hanging out with the wrong friends gets a new start after a memory-loss-inducing accident. But can someone really change who he is, or will the old him merely come back over time?

For 60 years Eleanor Estes' classic novel about a family struggling to get along in the early part of the century has charmed and delighted readers with its warmth and gentle humor. Now it comes to life in a full cast recording that will have you laughing out loud...and occasionally wiping away a tear. Our whole cast fell in love with this book, and we predict that you will, too.

Set in the 14th century, the classic story of one boy's personal heroism when he loses the use of his legs.

This is the story of Despereaux Tilling, a mouse in love with music, stories, and a princess named Pea. It is also the story of a rat called Roscuro, who lives in darkness but covets a world filled with light. And it is the story of Miggery Sow, a slow-witted serving girl with a simple, impossible wish. These characters are about to embark on a journey that will lead them down into a horrible dungeon, up into a glittering castle, and ultimately, into each other's lives.

When a novel like Huckleberry Finn or The Yearling comes along, it defies customary adjectives because of the intensity of the response it evokes in the reader. Such a tale is Old Yeller; to listen to this eloquently simply story of a boy and his dog in the Texas hill country is an unforgettable and deeply moving experience.

When suburban Claudia Kincaid decides to run away, she knows she doesn't just want to run from somewhere she wants to run to somewhere--to a place that is comfortable, beautiful, and preferably elegant. She chooses the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Knowing that her younger brother, Jamie, has money and thus can help her with the serious cash flow problem she invites him along.

Eleven-year-old Charlie Reese has been making the same secret wish every day since fourth grade. But when she is sent to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina to live with family she barely knows, it seems unlikely that her wish will ever come true. That is until she meets Wishbone, a skinny stray dog who captures her heart, and Howard, a neighbor boy who proves surprising in lots of ways. Suddenly Charlie is in serious danger of discovering that what she thought she wanted may not be what she needs at all.

With the depression bearing down on her family, there isn't much that Cassie Logan can count on anymore. But there is one thing that hasn't changed - the whispering trees outside her window. Cassie's trees, which have stood for centuries, are a great source of comfort to her. But they are also worth a lot of money. With Cassie's daddy gone to lay tracks for the railroad, it seems like no one can stop Mr. Andersen from forcing Big Ma to sell their valuable trees. How can Cassie sit by and watch them disappear?

Of especially naughty children, it is sometimes said: “They must have been raised by wolves.” The Incorrigible children actually were. Discovered in the forests of Ashton Place, the Incorrigibles are no ordinary children: Alexander keeps his siblings in line with gentle nips; Cassiopeia has a bark that is (usually) worse than her bite; and Beowulf is alarmingly adept at chasing squirrels.

Island of the Blue Dolphins is the remarkable story of a strange and beautiful Indian girl who lives a serene and courageous life as the solitary survivor on an island off the California coast. Left behind when the rest of her tribe fled, she waits, year after year, for a ship to come for her. She fights for her very survival, building a shelter, hunting for food, and making weapons to stave off her enemies, the wild dogs who took her brother.

As if baking holiday cookies, knitting a sweater for her husband, and making her daughter’s angel costume for the church pageant weren’t enough things for Lucy Stone’s busy Christmas schedule, she’s also working nights at the famous mail-order company Country Cousins. But when she discovers Sam Miller, its very wealthy founder, dead in his car from an apparent suicide, the sleuth in her knows something just doesn’t smell right.

Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.

Stopping a tornado was the first of many strange events that seem to follow Weylyn from town to town, although he doesn't like to take credit. As amazing as these powers may appear, they tend to manifest themselves at inopportune times and places. From freak storms to trees that appear to grow over night, Weylyn's unique abilities are a curiosity at best and at worst, a danger to himself and the woman he loves. But Mary doesn't care.

Jamie Watson has always been intrigued by Charlotte Holmes; after all, their great-great-great-grandfathers were one of the most infamous pairs in history. But the Holmes family has always been odd, and Charlotte is no exception. She's inherited Sherlock's volatility and some of his vices - and when Jamie and Charlotte end up at the same Connecticut boarding school, Charlotte makes it clear she's not looking for friends.

Cory is a young tooth fairy in training who wants to be anything but that, except there's no way the Tooth Fairy Guild or her mother will let that happen. After yet another bad night on the job, Cory quits to explore other things--like babysitting an adventurous Humpty Dumpty, helping Suzy organize seashells by the seashore, and attempting to finally rid the spiders that plague Marjorie Muffet. But it isn't until Marjorie asks Cory to help set her up with a boy that Cory taps into a power she never knew she had.

The Whitaker family's Connecticut mansion, Muses by the Sea, has always been a haven for artists, a hotbed of creativity, extravagances, and the occasional scandal. Art patrons for generations, the Whitakers supported strangers but drained the life out of each other. Now, after being estranged for years, four generations of Whitaker women find themselves once again at the Muses. Leo, the Whitaker matriarch, lives in the rambling mansion.

"Dear Libby, It occurs to me that you and your two children have been living with your mother for - Dear Lord! - two whole years, and I'm writing to see if you'd like to be rescued." The letter comes out of the blue, and just in time for Libby Moran, who - after the sudden death of her husband, Danny - went to stay with her hypercritical mother. Now her crazy Aunt Jean has offered Libby an escape: a job and a place to live on her farm in the Texas Hill Country.

When we last saw Zippy, she was oblivious to the storm that was brewing in her home. Her mother, Delonda, had literally just gotten up off the couch and ridden her rickety bicycle down the road. Her dad was off somewhere, gambling or "working." And Zippy was lost in her own fabulous world of exploring the fringes of Moorland, Indiana.

Blues musician Cory Ainsworth is barely scraping by after her mother's death when she discovers a priceless piece of rock 'n' roll memorabilia hidden away in a shed out back of the family's coastal South Carolina home: Elvis Presley's Stutz Blackhawk, its interior a time capsule of the singer's last day on earth. A backup singer for the King, Cory's mother, Honey, was at Graceland the day Elvis died.

Grad student Will Dillard has largely buried memories of the summer he spent at a camp intended to "cure" homosexuality. But when he finds out a horror movie based on the camp is hitting theaters, he's forced to face his past - and his role in another camper's death. As he recounts the events surrounding his "failed rehabilitation", Will strikes out on an impromptu road trip back home to Mississippi, eventually returning to the abandoned campgrounds to solve the mysteries of that pivotal summer.

Thank Goodness It's Fiber: That's the name of the spunky group of fiber and needlework artists founded by Ivy McClellan, Kath's beloved grandmother. Though Ivy has recently passed on, the members still meet regularly at her fiber and fabric shop, The Weaver's Cat, which Kath has now inherited. But that's only the first in a series of surprises when Kath returns to the small town of Blue Plum, Tennessee, to settle her grandmother's affairs

Molly Ayer has been in foster care since she was eight years old. Most of the time, Molly knows it's her attitude that's the problem, but after being shipped from one family to another, she's had her fair share of adults treating her like an inconvenience. So when Molly's forced to help an elderly woman clean out her attic for community service, Molly is wary. Just another adult to treat her like a troublemaker.

When Melissa Francis was eight years old, she won the role of lifetime: playing Cassandra Cooper Ingalls, the little girl who was adopted with her brother (played by young Jason Bateman) by the Ingalls family on the world’s most famous prime-time soap opera, Little House on the Prairie. But behind the scenes, her success was fueled by the pride, pressure, and sometimes grinding cruelty of her stage mother.

Emily Bell believes in destiny. To her, being forced to sing a solo in the church choir - despite her average voice - is fate: because it's while she's singing that she first sees Sam. At first sight they are connected. Sam Border wishes he could escape, but there's nowhere for him to run. He and his little brother, Riddle, have spent their entire lives constantly uprooted by their unstable father. As Sam and Riddle are welcomed into the Bells' lives, they witness the warmth and protection of a family for the first time.

The biggest thing to happen to Skary, Indiana, is renowned horror novelist Wolfe Boone, or "Boo" as the locals fondly call him. For the past 16 years, the reclusive writer has been the town's greatest attraction, having unintentionally turned the once struggling Skary into a thriving tourist trap for the dark side.

But when a newly reformed Wolfe suddenly quits the genre and subsequently starts to pursue Skary's favorite girl-next-door, Ainsley Parker, the little town becomes truly horrified.