When Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel, Mary Ann, lose their jobs to the gasoline, electric, and diesel motor shovels, they go to a little country town where they find that one new job leads to another.

A collection of six connected stories that follows a group of fox kits as they fight to survive in an unforgiving wilderness. The haunted season has arrived in the Antler Wood. No fox kit is safe. When Mia and Uly are separated from their litters, they discover a dangerous world full of monsters. In order to find a den to call home, they must venture through field and forest, facing unspeakable things that dwell in the darkness: a zombie who hungers...

"In his first novel in ten years, Ernest Gaines, the highly acclaimed author of the best-selling The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, brings us a wrenching story of death and identity in a small Cajun Louisiana community in the late 1940s." "A young black named Jefferson is a reluctant party in a shoot-out in a liquor store in which the three other men involved are all killed, including the white store owner. Jefferson, the only survivor, is accused...

Around the year 1000, the Icelandic horse named Elska is born and learns about life and her role in the herd, as well as love and friendship, when she rescues the girl to whom she originally belonged. Includes facts about Icelandic horses and Iceland.

A young Asian boy notices that his eyes look different from his peers' after seeing his friend's drawing of them. After talking to his father, the boy realizes that his eyes rise to the skies and speak to the stars, shine like sunlit rays, and glimpse trails of light from those who came before--in fact, his eyes are like his father's, his agong's, and his little brother's, and they are visionary. Inspired by the men in his family, he recognizes his...

"A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret. Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages. When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel...

When a little boy spends Christmas with his dying cousin, they discover that Santa really does exist.

"Now wielding the Midnight Blade, Jack Sullivan and the gang are furiously searching for the villainous Thrull and his skeleton army. The clock is ticking: the enemy has begun constructing the Tower--a portal with the power to bring Rezzoch the Ancient, Destructor of Worlds, to our dimension. Equipped with a crucial clue discovered by June on her Wild Flight, the group does the once-unthinkable: they leave Wakefield behind and embark on an...epic...

Seventeen-year-old Jack Thayer explores the Titanic and forms a brief friendship with another passenger before experiencing the wreck of the giant ocean liner.

On May 18, 1980, eleven-year-old Jessie Marlowe and her best friends, Eddie and Sam, are in a forest near Mount St. Helens when the months of wondering whether the volcano will erupt are finally answered--all three are badly burned, but it is up to Jessie to protect the boys as best she can and hope that somebody comes to rescue them.