"Fished from the river as an infant and raised by a roving band of street urchins who call themselves the Crowns, eight-year-old Duck keeps her head down and her mouth shut. It's a rollicking life, always thieving, always on the run -- until the ragtag Crowns infiltrate an abandoned cathedral in the city of Odierne and decide to set down roots. It's all part of the bold new plan hatched by the Crowns' fearless leader, Gnat: one of their very own will...

After realizing that the Underwear Dragon misbehaves only because he cannot read, Sir Cole and his would-be assistant, Claire, are determined to help the fearsome beast.

Rhenn prepares for his liaison duties only to encounter hostility from his new commander and a threat from a vengeful High Holder, a situation for which he becomes a lone defender against gang lords, naval marines, and terrorist priests.

Maren, desperate to save her kidnapped girlfriend, plans to steal one of the emperor's dragons and storm the Aurati stronghold, but her success depends on becoming an apprentice to the emperor's mysterious dragon trainer, which proves to be a dangerous venture.

As an apprentice in his uncle's studio, Antonio learns that creating beautiful frescoes for a Florentine chapel demands tedious chores, long hours, and unending patience.

In seventeenth-century Rome, fifteen-year-old Marco is excited to be apprenticed to a famous sculptor but soon discovers that he has much to learn before he is allowed to touch a piece of stone.

Set against the backdrop of the Gordon Riots of 1780, Barnaby Rudgeis a story of mystery and suspense which begins with an unsolved murder and goes on to involve conspiracy, blackmail, abduction and retribution. Through the course of the novel fathers and sons become opposed, apprentices plot against their masters and anti-Catholic mobs rampage through the streets. And, as London erupts into riot, Barnaby Rudge himself struggles to escape the curse...

Thirteen-year-old Lemony Snicket begins his apprenticeship with S. Theodora Markson of the secretive V.F.D. in the tiny dot of a town called Stain'd By The Sea, where he helps investigate the theft of a statue.