This book tells of four sisters: Meg the beauty, Jo the rebel, Beth the peacekeeper, and Amy the dilettante. While Meg is eager to start a family of her own, Beth suffers illness, Amy is determined to live the life of a rich woman, and Jo dreams of a career as a writer. Their stories, their dreams, their romances, and their quarrels keep us turning page after page as they grow together into womanhood.

Angry and humiliated after his sharecropper father is jailed for stealing food for his family, a young African-American boy grows in understanding by learning to read and in courage with the help of his devoted dog, Sounder.

When eleven-year-old Jenny goes to stay with her widowed grandmother who lives by the seaside, she learns a great deal about the nature of love and the ways of the sea.

All Karen's parents do is fight! Now her dad has decided to move out of the house and they're talking about divorce. Despite their fighting, Karen is sure they can work it out if they really try. Can Karen hold the family together - or is divorce really the best solution?

Nothing is simple for 12-year-old Peter. His younger brother, Fudge, is bad enough. Now there's a new baby on the way, and his family is moving to Princeton for a year. A genuinely funny story . . . dealing with the kinks and knots of modern family life.

Living with his little brother, Fudge, makes Peter Hatcher feel like a fourth grade nothing. Whether he's throwing a temper tantrum in a shoe store, smearing mashed potatoes on the walls at Hamburger Heaven, or scribbling all over Peter's homework, Fudge is never far from trouble. How can Peter get his parents to listen to him for a change?

An eight-year-old girl, "The Great One," and her six-year-old brother, "The Pain," state their cases about each other and who is best loved by their parents.

This beloved story follows the frontier adventures of Caddie Woodlawn, a tomboy growing up in Wisconsin during the 1860s. More likely to plow than bake, she's the despair of her mother and older sister. But when Indians threaten to massacre the settlers, it's Caddie who saves the day.

A teen-age girl gains new insight into herself and her family when her mentally handicapped brother gets lost.

When Junior Blossom wakes up in the hospital, his last memory is of crouching on the barn roof with cloth wings tied to his arms, and of Maggie and Vern in the yard below, urging him to fly. That had been just before Junior spotted a police car approaching the farm in a cloud of dust. Meanwhile Pap, the children's grandfather, sits in disgrace in the city jail. He was arrested for disturbing the peace after his pickup truck accidentally dumped 2,147 beer and soda cans (worth $107.35) on Spring Street. With their mother away on the rodeo circuit, it's up to Maggie and Vern to find a way to rescue Pap and Junior. How will they solve their family problems?

Beezus wants to love her little sister as much as her mother loves her sister, Aunt Beatrice. But Ramona keeps doing things that make Beezus furious. Not until her mother and Aunt Beatrice share some childhood memories does Beezus feel that maybe there is some hope for Ramona after all.

Mr. Quinby's going to college, Mrs. Quinby's going to work. Now that Ramona is eight, she can go to a new school with a new teacher and ride the bus all by herself. But after school she has to stay with Grandmother Kemp and be nice to that bratty little Willa Jean until Beezus--who's tempermental enough to ruin anyone's day - comes to take her home. Life isn't as easy for Ramona as it used to be.

Eleven-year-old Cliff is the oldest of six kids in a family that does everything in a big way - whether they're fighting, laughing, playing, eating, or celebrating the holidays. And when tragedy strikes, Cliff's tale of the family's slow but steady recovery is both realistic and inspiring.

Tanya loves listening to her grandmother talk about the quilt she is making from pieces of colorful fabric from the family clothes. When Grandma becomes ill, Tanya decides to finish Grandma's masterpiece with the help of her family.

It's been only two months since Spoon Gilmore's grandmother died, but already he's worried that he'll forget her. But Spoon's little sister, Joanie, won't give him time alone to think, even when they go to their grandfather's house. What happens there will stay with readers long after they finish this read.

The Robber and Me is a heartwarming story about the triumph of friendship and the bonds between new-found fathers and sons. Set in 19th-century rural Germany, this timeless novel shows how one orphan boy struggles against a town's prejudice to do what he believes is right.

Mama tells her daughter stories about Papa's island, a beautiful place where you can feed fish straight from your hand, see hermit crabs on the beach, and watch geckos walk on the ceiling.

Four stories about Lionel and his big sister Louise at the beach, cleaning up a mess, fighting a "dragon", and camping out in the backyard.

To Anastasia Krupnik, being ten is very confusing. For one thing, she has this awful teacher who can't understand why Anastasia doesn't capitalize or punctuate her poems. Then, there's Washburn Cummings, a very interesting sixth-grade boy who doesn't even know she is alive. Even her parents have become difficult. They insist she visit her 92-year-old grandmother who can never remember Anastasia's name. On top of that, they're going to have a baby -- at their age! It's enough to make a kid want to do something terrible. Anastasia knows that if she didn't have her secret green notebook to write in, she would never make it to her eleventh birthday.

In the late 19th century a widowed midwestern farmer with two children - Anna and Caleb - advertises for a wife. When Sarah arrives she is homesick for Maine, especially for the ocean which she misses greatly. The children fear that she will not stay, and when she goes off to town alone, young Caleb - whose mother died during childbirth - is stricken with the fear that she has gone for good. But she returns with colored pencils to illustrate for them the beauty of Maine, and to explain that, though she misses her home, "the truth of it is I would miss you more." The tale gently explores themes of abandonment, loss and love.

Annabel woke up to the ultimate surprise. It was the rollers in her hair that first tipped her off--she had turned into her mother! Follow the events of a hilarious day in the life of Annabel as she develops a healthy respect for her mother and a new angle on her own life.

Although she sucks her thumb, smells bad, and loses herself in the make-believe world of the three bears' dollhouse, ten-year-old Fran knows how to take care of her baby sister better than anybody else.

Make no mistake. The Bad Beginning begins badly for the three Baudelaire children, and then gets worse. Their misfortunes begin one gray day on Briny Beach when Mr. Poe tells them that their parents perished in a fire that destroyed their whole house. The children thought it was bad when the well-meaning Poes bought them grotesque-colored clothing that itched. But when they are ushered to the dilapidated doorstep of the miserable, thin, unshaven, shiny-eyed, money-grubbing Count Olaf, they know that they - and their family fortune - are in real trouble. Still, they could never have anticipated just how much.

Facing a year of night riders and burnings, Cassie and her family continue their struggle to keep their land and hold onto what rightfully belongs to them, despite the difficult battles they must continue to endure.

A heartwarming story of five little girls living with their parents in New York City at the turn of the century. They have simple but happy times as they share adventures, holidays and surprises. When Mama tells them her big news, it's the most wonderful surprise of all!

Wolves and panthers and bears roamed the deep Wisconsin woods in the 1870's. In those same woods, Laura Ingalls lived with her Pa and Ma and her sisters, Mary and Baby Carrie, in a snug little house built of logs. Pa hunted and trapped. Ma made her own cheese and maple sugar. All night long, the wind howled lonesomely.

Laura and her family leave their little house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin and set out for Kansas. Sometimes pioneer life is hard but Laura and her folks are always busy and happy in their new little house on the prairie.