Patricia Reilly Giff

When her brother Rob, a Navy cook, goes missing in action during World War II, Jayna, desperate for family, leaves upstate New York and their cranky landlady, accompanied by a turtle and a ghost, to seek their grandmother, who Rob believes may live in Brooklyn. Includes soup recipes.

When twelve-year-old Lidie leaves Brazil to join her father and brother on a horse ranch in New York, she has a hard time adjusting to her changed circumstances, as does a new horse that has come to the ranch.

When a terrible blight attacks Ireland's potato crop in 1845, twelve-year-old Nory Ryan's courage and ingenuity helps her family and neighbors survive.

Three city siblings, now living on a farm during the Great Depression, must survive on their own when their father takes a construction job miles away.

When Sam, who can barely read, discovers an old newspaper clipping just before his eleventh birthday, it brings forth memories from his past, and, with the help of a new friend at school and the castle they are building for a school project, his questions are eventually answered.

While trying to hide an incriminating report card and dodge meddling siblings, fifth-grade twins Hunter and Zack set out to save their town from a diabolical dentist who is planning to blow it to smithereens.

"Charlie has lots of ideas. Need something to go sky high? Ah-ha! The zinger-winger! Need to launch a cheese popper into soup? The amazing popper-upper! But the zinger-winger zings more than wings, and the popper-upper plops. Charlie isn't allowed to invent for a week. Meanwhile, the afterschool invention fair is coming up. He needs time to make something special. Good thing he has his friends and Mr. Redfern, another inventor, to help him out"--...

"Mateo's big brother Julian works in the United States. When the family doesn't hear from Julian for a few weeks, Mateo sneaks out and journeys north to find him, crossing the border with the help of a new friend, Angel"--

Mitchell is afraid when the children from the Zigzag Center go camping overnight, but he tries to be brave and discovers that nature is not so scary after all.

"In 1942 13-year-olds Izzy and Matt become trapped on an Japanese-occupied Aleutian island when the rest of the American population is evacuated and must survive on their own for the duration of World War II"--