Frank Carlson Library

Polly Flint, a lonely orphan living on a barren strip of land on the bleak coast of England, escapes in a world of books--especially Defoe's novel "Robinson Crusoe"--for emotional and intellectual nourishment.

A middle schooler who has recently lost both his parents sees a ghost wearing old-fashioned clothing in the basement of the New York Public Library.

Chandra Kabelo, a teenaged African girl, must save her younger siblings after they are kidnapped and forced to serve as child soldiers in General Mandiki's rebel army.

In 1862 Nevada Territory, after finding his foster parents murdered and scalped, twelve-year-old Pinky Pinkerton, son of a railroad detective and a Sioux Indian, inherits a valuable deed and must hide from dangerous Whittlin Walt and his gang of desperados.

"Once Ana was an orphaned space outlaw. Then she was the Empress of the Iron Kingdom. Now, thought dead by most of the galaxy after she escaped from the dark AI program called the HIVE, Ana is desperate for a way to save Di from the HIVE’s evil clutches and take back her kingdom. Ana’s only option is to find Starbright, the one person who hacked into the HIVE and lived to tell the tale. But when Ana’s desperation costs the crew...

With her mama recently dead and her pa out of the picture since her birth, big sister Amelia is suddenly in charge of her younger brother and sister - and the family gas station. Harley Blevins, local king and emperor of Standard Oil, is in hot pursuit to clinch his fuel monopoly. To keep him at bay and her family out of foster care, Melia must come up with a father - and fast. And so when a hobo rolls out of a passing truck, Melia grabs opportunity...

In 1860s Nevada, master-of-disguise P.K. Pinkerton uncovers a sinister plot when he takes a case that calls for him to shadow his friend and mentor, Poker Face Jace.

"Cleo Davenport has heard the whispers: the murmured conversations that end abruptly the second she walks into a room. Told she was an orphan, she knows the rumor-that her father is none other than the Prince of Wales, heir to the British throne. And at her childhood home at Cairo's Shepheard's Hotel, where royals, rulers, and the wealthy live, they even called her "The Princess." But her life is turned upside down when she turns seventeen. Sent to...

"A girl new to boarding school discovers dark secrets and coverups after her roommate disappears"-- Sade Hussein is starting her third year of high school, this time at the prestigious Alfred Nobel Academy boarding school. After being home-schooled all her life and feeling like a magnet for misfortune, she's not sure what will happen. What she doesn't expect though is for her roommate Elizabeth to disappear after Sade's first night. Or for people...

"Clayton Stumper might be in his twenties, but he dresses like your grandpa and fusses like your aunt. Abandoned at birth on the steps of the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers, he was raised by a group of eccentric enigmatologists and now finds himself among the last survivors of a fading institution. When the esteemed crossword compiler and main maternal presence in Clayton's life, Pippa Allsbrook, passes away, she bestows her final puzzle on him: a promise...