Every May Day, the Obby Oss dances through the streets of Padstow. Thirza and her brothers join in, with the whole village. But Thirza never sees her father on May Day. In this particular year, the men sail off to fight the King's war against the French. The town of Padstow is left to the women and children. Then one day Thirza sees a French warship coming to attack Padstow. Turnning to warn the others, she bumps into the frightening figure of Aunt Ursula Birdhood. Aunt Ursula tells the boys to grab musical instruments and the girls and women to put on their red Sunday cloaks. She puts on the Obby Oss skin and makes Thirza dance in front of her. Together they save the village and Thirza learns the secret of what her father does on May Day.

Ages 9 to 12 years When a boy and girl wake up within a stone circle, their minds are blank. They don't know where they are, where they're from or even who they are. Before these questions can be answered they find themselves about to be sacrificed by a Bronze Age tribe. Then the mysterious Foreseer arrives and saves them. He tells them that before they can return home to their own time, they have to steal an artefact from the vicious Beaker Tribe and restore the stone circle to its former glory. Will they succeed? Or will they be cast in Bronze forever?

Ten-year-old Danny yearns for responsibility and a chance to prove his skills. He desperately wants to pitch in and ease the difficulties that pioneer life presents to his family as they manage their large fruit and livestock farm in 1894.

Life on the farm is hard, though, and Danny, with his unusually small stature, struggles to gain strength to help his father and the hired hands. After all, there are difficult chores to tackle: chopping and hauling wood, caring for the workhorses, slopping the pigs, and hunting food.

With sheer determination, Danny takes on everything his father allows, working hard to help ensure his family's well-being. What Danny comes to realize, though, is that it's not a person's size that counts. When he confronts a rogue cougar, runaway horses, and a classroom bully, Danny must use his wits, sensibilities, and instincts to prevail.

Fans of Laura Ingalls Wilder will find Danny's adventures particularly satisfying. Come along with Danny as he learns about both the harsh realities and simple pleasures of rural life in New York.

In "Escape by Night," Ten-year-old Tommy and his sister Annie are intrigued by the new soldiers arriving in their Georgia town. Since the Civil War started, wounded men waiting to be treated at the local church-turned-hospital have been coming in by droves. When Tommy sees a soldier drop his notebook, he sends his dog, Samson, to fetch it. Tommy soon meets the soldier and is faced with the hardest decision he's ever had to make: whether or not he should help a Yankee escape to freedom.
Filled with intriguing suspense and tackling difficult questions about slavery, this story, told in accessible short chapters by Laurie Myers, will appeal to history buffs as well as those who appreciate a faithful dog.

1899. All Nansi knows is that her mother disappeared on the day she was fished out of Cardiff docks. She can't remember anything else. Now, with no other family to turn to, she works for Sid at the Empire Theatre, sometimes legally, sometimes thieving to order, trying to earn enough money to hire a detective to find her mother. Everything changes when Constance and Violet join the theatre, both with their own dark secrets. Nansi is forced to be part of Violet's crooked psychic act. But it's when Constance recognises her, and realises who her mother must be, that Nansi's world is turned upside down forever. She is soon on the run for her life and she will have to risk everything if she's going to find the truth.

Fifteen year old Nikki got more than he bargained for when traveling abroad with his parents and his private tutor in Cairo, Egypt. Little did he suspect that while he and his tutor Amanda Tilson, and his older Scottish friend Ian, where exploring the great ruins of Egypt that they would find themselves on an adventure of a lifetime searching for the supposed treasure of Queen Hatshepsut. Amanda lead by the mystical appearance and guiding voice of a young Egyptian Princess from centuries past, soon finds clues that speak of the enormous treasure. By joining the golden clues together, they are transported back through time soon after the mysterious disappearance of the Pharaoh herself. Could they find more clues that would take them back to their own time or would they be stuck in the year 1458 B.C. forever? Would survive the evil intentions of the Magi to destroy them? Could they use the clues to find the hidden treasure of the forgotten Pharaoh?

Shirley Temple did a lot to make Rebecca famous when she won the world's heart in the movie we all remember. But the story is more than Temple, the film, or our memory of it: this is the tale of the little showgirl who, sent to the country to live with prim and proper relatives, is forbidden to do anything, well, showy.

But Rebecca has other ideas, of course, and you know she'll win over the hearts and minds of everyone who'll see her show. . . .

Certainly she won over Jack London. In 1904 he wrote to Wiggin herself: "May I thank you for Rebecca. . . ? I would have quested the wide world over to make her mine, only I was born too long ago and she was born but yesterday.... Why could she not have been my daughter? Why couldn't it have been I who bought the three hundred cakes of soap? Why, O, why?" And Mark Twain, too: he described "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" as "beautiful and warm and satisfying."

As World War I draws to a close in 1918, German citizens are starving and suffering under a repressive regime. Sixteen-year-old Moritz is torn. His father died in the war and his older brother still risks his life in the trenches, but his mother does not support the patriotic cause and attends subversive socialist meetings. While his mother participates in the revolution to sweep away the monarchy, Moritz falls in love with a Jewish girl who also is a socialist. When Moritz's brother returns home a bitter, maimed war veteran, ready to blame Germany's defeat on everything but the old order, Moritz must choose between his allegiance to his dangerously radicalized brother and those who usher in the new democracy.

This is the story of a sixteen-year-old boy who finds his way to the beginning of manhood during a great and memorable adventure in the world of nature. Geordie Sutton was more interested in the wildlife of the prairie slough and along the Iowa River than he was in following his father's footsteps into the practice of law. His world stretched comfortably from quiet, tree-lined streets with well-spaced houses to clandestine adventures on the river. But the turn of the century was still not far behind, and not even the impact of Darwin could persuade Geordie's father than a career in natural science was anything more than an excuse to loaf in the outdoors. Questioning his own right to choose a life of which his father disapproved, Geordie joined an expedition to Laysan Island, an atoll in the Pacific, where five species of oceanic birds unique to that island were threatened with extinction. There, among colonies of albatross, miller birds, shearwaters, honey eaters and teal, finch and little flightless rails, as well as seals, huge turtles, and most surprisingly of all, rabbits which the expedition had come to kill, Geordie learned that life is full of cruelty as well as beauty, and that no man can stand aside from involvement with both these forces. A Certain Island is Robert Murphy's fourth novel, a story of a classic adolescent conflict set against a background of true natural adventure.