Recounts the tragedy that strikes the Meeker family during the American Revolution when one son joins the rebel forces while the rest of the family tries to stay neutral in a Tory town.

Living with irresponsible parents in a seedy part of a big city in 1910, thirteen-year-old Roger falls in with a gang of murderous burglars and discovers an unpleasant secret about his father.

A free thirteen-year-old black girl in Connecticut is caught up in the horror of the Revolutionary War and the danger of being returned to slavery when her patriot father is killed by the British and her mother disappears.

Char, Weddy, and Nuell are excited over their discovery on the strange planet Pleisto but also terrified, for the leader of their expedition, Professor Joher, has disappeared. Nuell and Weddy, Joher's children, are concerned for his safety, while Char, his research assistant, feels not only worried but responsible for all of them. He realizes that these prehistoric people may have carried off the professor-and may even have killed him. The three set...

Paulie Horvath is never going to be a good student like his brother, John, never going to follow his hardworking father into the plumbing trade, never going to ease his mother's mind by passing tests or cleaning up his room. But once he hears jazz by accident from the basement of a speakeasy, he knows exactly what he will do: learn that music and make it his life. Jazz is all around in gangland Chicago, but not so easy for a twelve-year-old to find,...

Gene Richards is haunted by a voice, and he doesn't like what it's saying. He's trying to ignore it-pretend it's not real-but the voice has plans for Gene. A long time ago, something bad happened in the town of Magnolia-something that Gene's grandfather and his friends want to keep quiet. The voice has started hurting those who were responsible, and it won't give up until Gene uncovers the town's eerie past. Determined to clear his grandfather's name,...

Christopher Quincy was an American boy whose father admired everything British. As a result of this trait, Chris found himself trapped at St. Basket's, an ancient London school founded-and built-in the time of Henry VIII and, Chris thought, it looked it. The corridors were dim and drafty, and the rooms of the boarding pupils, of whom Chris was one of four, were gloomy and unpretentious. Still, Chris had good company in his two roommates, Leslie Plainfield,...

A vivid portrayal of the Civil War. Johnny, fourteen, convinces his mother to let him join a wagon train carrying food to Confederate soldiers. He has been brought up to believe that all blacks are stupid; thus, when captured by a black Union soldier who insists that Johnny teach him to read, he deliberately tricks him. The boy is surprised the soldier saves him from imprisonment and their relationship grows throughout the book.

Nick Hodges had always been a troublesome boy. Growing up an orphan in his Uncle Jack's care in a small New England town wasn't easy. Everyone was a little wary, a little watchful-a little too watchful. One day, while Nick is walking in the woods, a neighbor thinks she sees him miles from where he actually is. Soon a series of events reinforcing Nick's hotheaded reputation unfold. The incidents become increasingly serious until, finally, Nick is the...

Chronicles the rise of trumpeter Louis Armstrong from a waif's home to a position as one of the most important musicians of his times.