Lois Lowry

Lame and suddenly orphaned, Kira is mysteriously removed from her squalid village to live in the palatial Council Edifice, where she is expected to use her gifts as a weaver to do the bidding of the all-powerful Guardians.

Unlike the other Birthmothers in her utopian community, teenaged Claire forms an attachment to her baby, feeling a great loss when he is taken to the Nurturing Center to be adopted by a family unit.

While learning to bestow dreams, a young dream giver tries to save an eight-year-old boy from the effects of both his abusive past and the nightmares inflicted on him by the frightening Sinisteeds.

In this tongue-in-cheek take on classic themes in children's literature, the four Willoughby children set about to become "deserving orphans" after their neglectful parents embark on a treacherous around-the-world adventure, leaving them in the care of an odious nanny.

Thirty years after their disappearance, the previously frozen Willoughbys have thawed out and returned from the Alps, to the consternation of their children and grandchildren.

Thirteen-year-old Meg and her sister Molly couldn't be more different. Molly is beautiful and popular, and Meg is brainy and introverted. Accepting these differences has always been difficult for Meg. When Molly falls ill, however, Meg must learn not only to accept Molly and her life, but to accept death.

A most unusual new student who loves to be the center of attention entertains her teacher and fellow second graders by telling absolutely true stories about herself, including how she got her name.

Nine-year-old Liz accompanies the stranger who is her father, just returned from the war, when he goes hunting for crows in Pennsylvania farmland.

"In 1918, as the Great War rages in Europe, the Spanish influenza tears a brutal path across the United States, leaving devastation in its wake. Ordinary life is turned upside down as schools are closed, and all spheres of public life are shut down. Suddenly, eleven-year-old Lydia Pierce and her older brother, Daniel, find themselves orphans of the flu, and are taken by their grieving uncle to be raised in the Shaker community at Sabbathday Lake....

Gooney Bird Greene takes charge of a class project as she and her fellow students in Mrs. Pidgeon's second grade class learn about fables by each making up their own based on an animal that begins with the same letter as their first name.