Abandoned by his mother in an Acadia National Park campground, Jack tries to make his way back to Boston before anyone figures out what is going on, with only a small toy elephant for company.

Thirteen-year-old Twig, having always looked and felt different from his woodtroll family, learns that he is adopted and travels out of his Deepwoods home to find the place where he belongs. Young Twig lives in the Deepwoods, among the Woodtrolls, but he isn't one of them. In a brave attempt to find out where he belongs, Twig wanders into the mysterious, dangerous world beyond the deepwoods. He meets a collection of odd companions, such as his wise...

In a city ravaged by crime and corruption, 13-year-old orphan Caw's only friends are the murder of crows he has lived with since his parents flung him from their house aged only five. Caw lives in a treehouse in an abandoned city park, surviving on scraps of food and only communicating with his three crows. But a jailbreak at the prison forces him into contact with other humans -- particularly a girl called Lydia, who is attacked by the escaped prisoners...

When her estranged mother decides to move out of town, Gertie devises a five-step plan that will make her the best fifth grader ever in order to show her mother what she'll be leaving behind, but a new student challenges her efforts.

Fearing that her legal guardian plans to abandon her to return to France, ten-year-old aspiring scientist Lucky Trimble determines to run away while also continuing to seek the Higher Power that will bring stability to her life.

In all the years that Elinora Gassbeek has been matron of the Little Tulip Orphanage, not once have the Rules for Baby Abandonment been broken. Until the autumn of 1880, when five babies are left in outrageous circumstances; one in a tin toolbox, one in a coal bucket, one in a picnic hamper, one in a wheat sack, and finally, one in a coffin-shaped basket. Those babies were Lotta, Egg, Fenna, Sem, and Milou. And although their cruel matron might think...

Firm in her belief that her missing parents will return to the bombed-out circus camp where she lives with a group of "leftover" children, ten-year-old Babo has no desire to leave her war-torn country.

Janie was four years old when she nearly drowned due to her mothers neglect. Through an unhappy foster home experience, and years of feeling that she is unwanted, she keeps alive her dream of someday being a famous singer.

On New Year's Eve, the octuplets Huit--Annie, Durinda, Georgia, Jackie, Marcia, Petal, Rebecca, and Zinnia--discover that their parents are missing, and then uncover a mysterious note instructing them that each must find her power and her gift if they want to know what happened to their parents.

April Fools' Day is long and hard for the third-grade Huit octuplets, but it is nothing compared to the challenges of Tax Day, through which Jackie discovers her special power and gift and learns more about their parents' mysterious disappearance.