Amy and the Orphans


Book Description

When their eighty-five-year-old father dies, sparring siblings Maggie and Jake must face a question: How to break the bad news to their sister Amy, who has Down syndrome and has lived in a state home for years? Along the way, the pair find out just how much they don’t know about their family and each other. It seems only Amy knows who she really is.




Splendors and Glooms


Book Description

Newbery Medalist Laura Amy Schlitz brings her sorcery to a Victorian gothic thriller — an enthralling, darkly comic tale that would do Dickens proud. The master puppeteer, Gaspare Grisini, is so expert at manipulating his stringed puppets that they appear alive. Clara Wintermute, the only child of a wealthy doctor, is spellbound by Grisini’s act and invites him to entertain at her birthday party. Seeing his chance to make a fortune, Grisini accepts and makes a splendidly gaudy entrance with caravan, puppets, and his two orphaned assistants. Lizzie Rose and Parsefall are dazzled by the Wintermute home. Clara seems to have everything they lack — adoring parents, warmth, and plenty to eat. In fact, Clara’s life is shadowed by grief, guilt, and secrets. When Clara vanishes that night, suspicion of kidnapping falls upon the puppeteer and, by association, Lizzie Rose and Parsefall. As they seek to puzzle out Clara’s whereabouts, Lizzie and Parse uncover Grisini’s criminal past and wake up to his evil intentions. Fleeing London, they find themselves caught in a trap set by Grisini’s ancient rival, a witch with a deadly inheritance to shed before it’s too late. Newbery Medal winner Laura Amy Schlitz’s Victorian gothic is a rich banquet of dark comedy, scorching magic, and the brilliant and bewitching storytelling that is her trademark.




The Heart of an Orphan


Book Description




Amy Carmichael


Book Description

For challenge and encouragement in your Christian life, read the life stories of the Heroes of the Faith. The novelized biographies of this series are inspiring and easy-to-read, ideal for Christians of any age or background. In Amy Carmichael, you’ll get to know the great missionary who rescued many girls of India from horrible abuses—and served nearly six decades without a furlough. Appropriate for readers from junior high through adult, helpful for believers of any background, these biographies encourage greater Christian commitment through the example of heroes like Amy Carmichael.




Andy and the Orphans


Book Description

When their eighty-five-year-old father dies, sparring siblings Maggie and Jake must face a question: How to break the bad news to their brother Andy, who has Down syndrome and has lived in a state home for years? Along the way, the pair find out just how much they don’t know about their family and each other. It seems only Andy knows who he really is.




A Drowned Maiden's Hair


Book Description

"People throw the word 'classic' about a lot, but A Drowned Maiden's Hair genuinely deserves to become one." — Wall Street Journal Maud Flynn is known at the orphanage for her impertinence, so when the charming Miss Hyacinth and her sister choose Maud to take home with them, the girl is as baffled as anyone. It seems the sisters need Maud to help stage elaborate séances for bereaved, wealthy patrons. As Maud is drawn deeper into the deception, playing her role as a "secret child," she is torn between her need to please and her growing conscience -- until a shocking betrayal makes clear just how heartless her so-called guardians are. Filled with tantalizing details of turn-of-the-century spiritualism and page-turning suspense, this lively historical novel features a winning heroine whom readers will not soon forget.




No Ocean Too Wide


Book Description

Between the years of 1869 to 1939 more than 100,000 poor British children were sent across the ocean to Canada with the promise of a better life. Those who took them in to work as farm laborers or household servants were told they were orphans--but was that the truth? After the tragic loss of their father, the McAlister family is living at the edge of the poorhouse in London in 1908, leaving their mother to scrape by for her three younger children, while oldest daughter, Laura, works on a large estate more than an hour away. When Edna McAlister falls gravely ill and is hospitalized, twins Katie and Garth and eight-year-old Grace are forced into an orphans' home before Laura is notified about her family's unfortunate turn of events in London. With hundreds of British children sent on ships to Canada, whether truly orphans or not, Laura knows she must act quickly. But finding her siblings and taking care of her family may cost her everything. Andrew Fraser, a wealthy young British lawyer and heir to the estate where Laura is in service, discovers that this common practice of finding new homes for penniless children might not be all that it seems. Together Laura and Andrew form an unlikely partnership. Will they arrive in time? Will their friendship blossom into something more? Inspired by true events, this moving novel follows Laura as she seeks to reunite her family and her siblings who, in their darkest hours, must cling to the words from Isaiah: "Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God".




Beasts & Children


Book Description

Linked stories exploring the dark heart of the American family: “Electrifying, daring . . . sure to appeal to fans of Karen Russell and Lorrie Moore ” (Booklist, starred review). A St. Louis Post-Dispatch Best Book of the Year The Bowmans are declining Texas gentry, heirs to an airline fortune, surrounded by a patriarch’s stuffed trophies and lost dreams. They will each be haunted by the past as they strive to escape its force. The Fosters are diplomats’ kids who might as well be orphans. Jill and Maizie grow up privileged amid poverty, powerless to change the lives of those around them and uncertain whether they have the ability to change their own. The Guzmans have moved between Colombia and the United States, each generation seeking opportunity for the next, only to find that the American dream can be as crushing as it is elusive. From the tense territory of a sagging, grand porch in Texas to a gated community in Thailand to a lonely apartment in nondescript suburbia, these wry, dark stories unwind the lives of three families as they navigate the ever-shifting landscapes of the American middle class. “No one is safe, Parker reminds us, especially within the family circle—but one’s chosen family can also offer salvation. . . . The stories, like the mounted heads in the Bowmans’ trophy room, rivet the gaze, demand that readers recognize themselves in those glassy eyes—and then become disconcertingly alive.” —The New York Times Book Review




The Ogress and the Orphans


Book Description

A National Book Award finalist and instant fantasy classic about the power of community, generosity, books, and baked goods, from the author of the beloved Newbery Medal winner The Girl Who Drank the Moon. Stone-in-the-Glen, once a lovely town, has fallen on hard times. Fires, floods, and other calamities have caused the people to lose their library, their school, their park, and even their neighborliness. The people put their faith in the Mayor, a dazzling fellow who promises he alone can help. After all, he is a famous dragon slayer. (At least, no one has seen a dragon in his presence.) Only the clever children of the Orphan House and the kindly Ogress at the edge of town can see how dire the town’s problems are. Then one day a child goes missing from the Orphan House. At the Mayor’s suggestion, all eyes turn to the Ogress. The Orphans know this can’t be: the Ogress, along with a flock of excellent crows, secretly delivers gifts to the people of Stone-in-the-Glen. But how can the Orphans tell the story of the Ogress’s goodness to people who refuse to listen? And how can they make their deluded neighbors see the real villain in their midst?




Wish You Happy Forever


Book Description

Wish You Happy Forever chronicles Half the Sky founder Jenny Bowen's personal and professional journey to transform Chinese orphanages—and the lives of the neglected girls who live in them—from a state of quiet despair to one of vibrant promise. After reading an article about the thousands of baby girls languishing in Chinese orphanages, Bowen and her husband adopted a little girl from China and brought her home to Los Angeles, not out of a need to build a family but rather a commitment to save one child. A year later, as she watched her new daughter play in the grass with her friends, thriving in an environment where she knew she was loved, Bowen was overcome with a desire to help the children that she could not bring home. That very day she created Half the Sky Foundation, an organization conceived to bring love into the life of every orphan in China and one that has actually managed to fulfill its promise. In Wish You Happy Forever, a fish out of water tale like no other, Bowen relates her struggle to bring the concept of "child nurture and responsive care" to bemused Chinese bureaucrats and how she's actually succeeding. Five years after Half the Sky's first orphanage program opened, government officials began to mention child welfare and nurturing care in public speeches. And, in 2011, at China's Great Hall of the People, Half the Sky and its government partners celebrated the launch of The Rainbow Program, a groundbreaking initiative to change the face of orphan care by training every child welfare worker in the country. Thanks to Bowen's relentless perseverance through heartbreak and a dose of humor, Half the Sky's goal to bring love the lives of forgotten children comes ever closer.