During the early days of the Civil War, the Pruitt family takes in two mysterious young ladies who have fled New Orleans to come north to Illinois.

In rural Indiana in 1904, fifteen-year-old Russell's dreams of quitting school and joining a wheat threshing crew are disrupted when his older sister takes over the teaching at his one-room schoolhouse after mean old Myrt Arbuckle "hauls off and dies."

A boy in Illinois remembers the home-front years of World War II, especially his two heroes, his brother in the Air Force and his father, who fought in the previous war.

In 1887, the social-climbing Cranstons voyage from New York to London, where they hope to find a husband for their awkward older daughter, secretly accompanied by Helena and her mouse siblings, for whom the journey is both terrifying and wondrous as they meet an array of titled humans despite their best efforts at remaining hidden.

"Archer has four important role models in his life--his dad, his grandfather, his uncle Paul, and his favorite teacher, Mr. McLeod. When Uncle Paul and Mr. McLeod get married, Archer's sixth-grade year becomes one he'll never forget."--

In 1913 in the Midwest a quartet of characters share adventures from exploding steamboats to "exorcising" a ghost.

When young Mary Cooke becomes a servant at Whitwell Hall in 1911, she does not imagine how her life will be manipulated by her mistress, Amanda Whitwell, nor how their lives will be intertwined.

A boy recounts his annual summer trips to rural Illinois with his sister during the Great Depression to visit their larger-than-life grandmother.

Six original one-act plays for middle graders written by six Newbery winning authors.

Love and sex complicate the lives of Nora Evans and her two teenage daughters in this coming of age film set in a small New Mexico town.