Thirteen-year-old fraternal twins Dallas and Florida have grown up in a terrible orphanage but their lives change forever when an eccentric but sweet older couple invites them each on an adventure, beginning in an almost magical place called Ruby Holler.

From her upside-down house, the eccentric Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle issues to parents her marvelous cures for such common children's diseases as Won't-Put-Away-Toys-itis, Answerbackism, and Fighter-Quarrelitis.

Fifteen-year-old Colie, a former fat girl, spends the summer working as a waitress in a beachside restaurant, staying with her overweight and eccentric Aunt Mira, and trying to explore her sense of self.

As he was composing what was to become his most enduring and popular book, E. B. White was obeying that oft repeated maxim: "Write what you know." Helpless pigs, silly geese, clever spiders, greedy rats, White knew all of these characters in the barns and stables where he spent his favorite hours. Painfully shy his entire life, "this boy, " White once wrote of himself, "felt for animals a kinship he never felt for people." It is all the more impressive,...

"This Christmas, lawyer Andy Carpenter and his golden retriever, Tara, can't say no to helping young Danny and his dachshund, Murphy. Lawyer Andy Carpenter and his wife, Laurie, have started a new Christmas tradition. Their local pet store has a Christmas tree, where instead of ornaments there are wishes from those in need. One poignant wish leads Andy to a child named Danny, whose selfless plea strikes a chord. Danny asked Santa for a coat for his...

Eleven-year-old Jack, the only "ordinary" member of the talented and eccentric Bagthorpe family, concocts a scheme to distinguish himself as a modern-day prophet.

The members of the talented and eccentric Bagthorpe family channel their energy into slogan-writing contests.

"In 1940, fifteen year-old Margot Fiske arrives on the shores of Monterey Bay with her eccentric entrepreneur father. Margot has been her father's apprentice all over the world, until an accident in Monterey's tide pools drives them apart and plunges her head-first into the mayhem of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row ... Alternating between past and present, Monterey Bay explores histories both imagined and actual to create an unforgettable portrait of...

Magdalena Yoder is (finally!) getting married, and nothing is going to spoil her wedding: not the man-of-her dreams, "loopy relatives," nor the twenty-year-old barrel of genuine Pennsylvania Dutch sauerkraut from her future father-in-law, which is not Mag's idea of a great wedding present. Especially when it contains a body! Of course, Magdalena recognizes the victim, who's as well-preserved as a gherkin: It's her fiance's cousin Sarah, who's been...

Abigail Bukula was fifteen when her parents were killed in a massacre of anti-apartheid activists by white security forces. Because a young soldier spoke up for her, she was spared. Now a lawyer with a promising career in the new government, she's never forgotten that soldier. So when he asks for her help almost twenty years later, Abigail vows to do what she can. The members of the team that raided her house are being murdered, and he is next.