Barkbelly

One silver-starry night, a shiny, wooden egg falls from a flying machine high in the air down, down, down through the midnight sky down to the small village of Pumbleditch, where Barkbelly is born. Where he’s the only wooden boy. And where he’s the cause of a tragic accident. Suddenly, Barkbelly’s only choice is to flee for his life—to run. As he tries to escape his haunting past, he faces extraordinary adventures and dangers. Every wooden step leads Barkbelly toward the dark and startling truth about where he comes from and the burning question of where he really belongs.

The Boy Who Ran with the Gazelles

A desert nomad woman has no milk, so brings her pet gazelle for her son to nurse. One day the boy and the gazelle wander off, and the pet gazelle finds a herd of her own kind. She protects the boy and he learns to run and feed himself. Hunters discover and capture him. He is terrified and does not eat. Finally, he escapes to rejoin his herd.

Tonight, by Sea

Seek life. Chache Lavi. That’s what Paulie’s uncle says they must do. But to seek life, Paulie and her family have to leave Haiti-the only home that Paulie has ever known. Since forever, Paulie has run in and out of the little houses nestled under the palms, smelling cocoa-bread and playing on the beach with her best friend Karyl. But now the little houses are gone. Their wood has been made into boats-boats used to escape Haiti.Paulie wants to stay and fight-to change Haiti into a better place to live. She wants to talk to the reporters and bravely tell the truth, like Karyl’s brother, Jean-Desir. But the macoutes come with their guns and knives to stop them. And they do something so terrible that Paulie must face the truth: before the soldiers come back, they must all leave-tonight, by sea.

Ely Plot

You’d think growing up in a medieval abbey, surrounded by nothing but monks and hundreds of miles of swamp, would be pretty boring. Pip thinks so too, until the day he meets Perfect, a small stone gargoyle with a life of her own. Before long, the two find themselves in the midst of an assassination attempt against the new king, escaping into the cold dark night, being chased across the fens by a man bent on killing them.

Letters from Rifka

In letters to her cousin, a young Jewish girl chronicles her family’s flight from Russia in 1919 and her own experiences when she must be left in Belgium for a while when the others emigrate to America.

The Mutiny On The Bounty

Life sailing with the Royal Navy in the 1780’s was particularly miserable: sailors slept in crowded hammocks, ate moldy cheese and maggoty bread, and were subject to very harsh discipline.  So when the HMS Bounty arrived in Tahiti after 11 months at sea, the crew of the Bounty thought it was heaven on earth. Living on the island paradise made them lazy and careless.  As the return journey began, Captain Bligh’s crew proved reluctant to leave. His temper began to flare, and his second-in-command and old friend Fletcher Christian suffered the worst of Bligh’s outbursts. His honor at stake and a longing to return to the island, Christian led a mutiny, then set Bligh and 18 loyal crew members adrift in a launch.   A daring escape by Christian and the mutineers, paired with Bligh’s amazing story of survival all make up one of history’s most rousing true maritime tales.  Patrick O’Brien’s 85 illustrations reach epic proportions of drama and realism.

Escape From Botany Bay: The True Story Of Mary Bryant

In 1791, after being transported to Australia in the first shipment of convicts, Mary Bryant, her husband, two children, and seven other convicts, unable to endure the terrible conditions of the penal colony, organize a daring escape in an open boat.