Penny From Heaven

By Jennifer Holm

As she turns twelve during the summer of 1953, Penny gains new insights into herself and her family while also learning a secret about her father's death. Newbery Honor book. 

Ruins of Gorlan

By John Flanagan

When fifteen-year-old Will is rejected by battleschool, he becomes the reluctant apprentice to the mysterious Ranger Halt and winds up protecting the kingdom from danger. First book in a series.

Lionboy

By Zizou Corder

In the near future, a boy with the ability to speak the language of cats sets out from London to seek his kidnapped parents and finds himself on a Paris-bound circus ship learning to train lions. First book in a series.

Listening For Lions

By Gloria Whelan

Left an orphan after the flu epidemic in British East Africa in 1919, thirteen-year-old Rachel is tricked into assuming a deceased neighbor's identity to travel to England, when her dream is to return to Africa and rebuild her parents' mission hospital.

A Dog's Life: The Autobiography of a Stray

By Ann M. Martin

Squirrel, a stray puppy, tells her life story, from her nurturing mother and brother to making her own way in the world, facing busy highways, changing seasons, and humans both gentle and brutal.

Flush

By Carl Hiaasen

With their father jailed for sinking a river boat, Noah Underwood and his younger sister, Abbey, must gather evidence that the owner of the floating casino is emptying his bilge tanks into the protected waters around their Florida Keys home.