The Cats in the Doll Shop

Author

Siobhán Parkinson

Life is noisy and hard but full of love for 12-year-old Kathleen Murphy and her family. Kathleen dreams of living with her favorite aunt, Polly, far from her crowded home and the strict nuns at the convent school. She's surprised to find that she has a talent for dancing--and a chance to win the dance competition!...

Author	Lilian Jackson Braun
ISBN	0425195201

Jim Qwilleran is a prizewinning reporter who's been on the skids but is now coming back with a job as feature writer (mostly on the art scene) for the Daily Fluxion. George Bonifield Mountclemens, the paper's credentialed art critic, writes almost invariably scathing, hurtful reviews of local shows;...

Author	George MacDonald
ISBN	0140367462

Published in 1872, The Princess and the Goblin is one of the first books in the modern fantasy genre. This book had tremendous and very visible influence on all the (now much more famous) authors that came after it.

It is of course very dated. It does not match the standards that fantasy have created...

Author	Rachel Hawkins
ISBN	0399256938

Harper Price, peerless Southern belle, was born ready for a Homecoming tiara. But after a strange run-in at the dance imbues her with incredible abilities, Harper's destiny takes a turn for the seriously weird. She becomes a Paladin, one of an ancient line of guardians with agility, super strength...

Author	Isabel Greenberg
ISBN	0385678150

Before our history began, another now forgotten civilization thrived. The people who roamed Early Earth were much like us: curious, emotional, funny, ambitious, and vulnerable. In this series of illustrated and linked tales, Isabel Greenberg chronicles the explorations of a young man as he paddles...

Author	Alev Lytle Croutier
ISBN	1584858311

Life in the Topkapi Palace harem follows its own rules and rhythms, and twelve-year-old newcomer Leyla has much to learn about this hidden world of women. When she reveals her skills as a gardener, Leyla is assigned to work with the Mistress of the Flowers. In the harem gardens, Leyla secretly plants...

Author	Charles Dickens
ISBN	0812973062

Compiled by Charles Dickens, and counting Elizabeth Gaskell and Wilkie
Collins among its contributors,The Haunted House is an ingenious tale of the supernatural with touches of pure Dickensian comedy. When the narrator espies a deserted house from his railway carriage, he cannot resist the...

Author	Neil Gaiman
ISBN	0061960306

"A perfect reminder to always be on the lookout for magic and wonder. Sometimes, we need those two things the most" (Brightly.com, citing "Books That Teach Kids What It Means to Be a Kind Person").

In this breathtaking jacketed picture book, Neil Gaiman's lyrical poem guides a novice traveler...

Author	Cynthia Rylant
ISBN	0689817088

Meet the Cobble Street Cousins!

Lily, who wants to be a poet
Tess, who wants to be a Broadway star
Rosie, who wants a little cottage with flowers by the door Right now, though, the cousins are sharing an attic bedroom in their Aunt Lucy?s light blue house on Cobble Street, and happily making...

Author

Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Boy has always been relegated to the outskirts of his small village. With a large hump on his back, a mysterious past, and a tendency to talk to animals, he is often mocked and abused by the other kids in his town. Until the arrival of a shadowy pilgrim named Secondus. Impressed with Boy’s climbing and...

Author	Cynthia Rylant
ISBN	0152009019

"The gentle, affecting first volume introduces elderly Mr. Putter, who decides that a cat will keep him from feeling lonely. Rylant’s texts reflect admirable concern for brevity and meticulous consideration of every word. They are in perfect sync with Howard’s expressive sketches, which slip...

Author	Mary Casanova
ISBN	1584855185

I read this book when I was young; as a younger me I found it a practically mesmerizing insight into the life of royalty in times of monarchal Versaille and utterly enjoyed reading about a girl who suddenly finds herself diving into the palace's world and discovering whether and where she belongs. The...

Author	Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
ISBN	1584855975

Now that her older sister is married, twelve-year-old Neela Sen knows their mother will be looking for a husband for Neela. But Neela's heart is stirred more by the fiery talk she overhears about India's freedom struggle than it is by talk of marriage. When Neela's father goes to Calcutta to learn more...

Author	Megan McDonald
ISBN	0689875886

A happy Hinky-Pink is a fine thing. An unhappy Hinky-Pink pinches!

That is what happens to Anabel, a young seamstress in Old Italy who has only days to finish her dream: sewing a gown for the princess to wear at the Butterfly Ball.

Thanks -- or no thanks -- to the Hinky-Pink Anabel is woozy...

Author	Karina Yan Glaser
ISBN	1328770028

Return to Harlem's "wildly entertaining" family in this funny, heartwarming sequel. When catastrophe strikes their beloved upstairs neighbors, the Vanderbeeker children set out to build the best, most magical healing garden in Harlem—in spite of a locked fence, thistles and trash, and the conflicting...

Author	Alice Mattison
ISBN	0688177867

On the first page of The Book Borrower, Toby Ruben and Deborah Laidlaw meet in 1975 in a New York City playground, where the two women are looking after their babies. Deborah lends Toby a book, Trolley Girl,--a memoir about a long ago trolley strike and three Jewish sisters, one a fiery revolutionary--that...

Author

Alison Littlewood

Pretty Lizzie Higgs is gone, burned to death on her own hearth - but was she really a changeling, as her husband insists? Albie Mirralls met his cousin only once, in 1851, within the grand glass arches of the Crystal Palace, but unable to countenance the rumours that surround her murder, he leaves his young...

Author	Cynthia Rylant
ISBN	0689817096

Meet The COBBLE STREET COUSINS Lily, who wants to be a poet Tess, who wants to be a Broadway star Rosie, who wants a little cottage with flowers by the door Lily has a wonderful idea -- to surprise Aunt Lucy with a dollhouse that looks just like her flower shop. But first the girls have to buy a few things at The...