Material appropriate for intermediate age groups
When authorities threaten to take Sophie, twelve, from Charles who has been her guardian since she was one and both survived a shipwreck, the pair goes to Paris to try to find Sophie’s mother, and they are aided by Matteo and his band of “rooftoppers.”
In an alternate United Kingdom, King Snodd aims to control the world by controlling magic, and only sixteen-year-old Jennifer Strange, acting manager of an employment agency for sorcerers, stands between Snodd and his plans.
As in the middle grade series debut Island of Thieves, scrappy twelve-year-old Tom Trelawney and his swashbuckling Uncle Harvey are a dynamite combination—in the dangerous, explosive sort of way. This time around, they impulsively fly from Ireland to India in hot pursuit of a small bejeweled tiger that yet another Trelawney, a British soldier, allegedly plundered in 1799. They’re pretty sure they can get a couple million dollars for it too, if they can make it past a gun-happy Aussie and a pit of man-eating tigers.
Stanley Potts’s uncle Ernie has developed an over-the-top fascination with canning fish in the house, and life at 69 Fish Quay Lane has turned barmy. But there’s darkness in the madness, and when Uncle Ernie’s obsession takes an unexpectedly cruel turn, Stan has no choice but to leave. As he journeys away from the life he’s always known, he mingles with a carnival full of eccentric characters and meets the legendary Pancho Pirelli, the man who swims in a tank full of perilous piranhas.
In 1889 London young women are turning up dead, and Evaline Stoker, relative of Bram, and Mina Holmes, niece of Sherlock, are summoned to investigate the clue of the not-so-ancient Egyptian scarabs–but where does a time traveler fit in?
To escape from a planned arranged marriage, teenaged Cat Hunter disguises herself as a boy and stows away on a smuggler’s airship where she discovers a world of excitement and adventure.
Cosmo’s granddad used to be the cleverest person he ever knew. That is, until his granddad’s mind began to fail. In a rare moment of clarity, his granddad gives Cosmo a key and pleads with Cosmo to go to the South Gates of Blackbrick Abbey, where his granddad promises an “answer to everything.” In the dead of night, Cosmo does just that.
To the animals of Lodge Farm, the woods are a forbidden place filled with danger and uncertainty. For the wild animals in the forest, the farm is just as frightening, because Man lives there. The two worlds are next to one another, but couldn’t be further apart.
Four years after Alfie Summerfield’s father left London to become a soldier in World War I, he has not returned but Alfie, now nine, is shining shoes at King’s Cross Station when he happens to learn that his father is at a nearby hospital being treated for shell shock.
Montana-born Rex dreams of following in his grandfather’s footsteps and making a first descent down one of the world’s last unconquered wild rivers. When he finally gets enough sponsors, Rex heads to South America to tackle the well-named El Furioso. And while he anticipates the river’s challenges, he finds himself in a situation where the real danger is human.