Longbow Girl

Sixteen-year-old expert archer Merry Owen is desperate to save her family’s farm in Wales, in the shadow of the Black Castle, and when she finds a buried chest containing an ancient and hopefully valuable Welsh text, she hopes it will be the key to a fortune–and so it is, but not in the way she expected, for it sends her and her friend James de Courcy into past.

Blue Penguin

Far away, near the South Pole, a blue penguin is born. It is not something you see every day. “I feel like a penguin,” says Blue Penguin. “But you’re not like us,” the others tell him. Blue Penguin can’t jump or dive very well, so the others wander off and leave him behind. In his loneliness, Blue Penguin begins to dream, and he starts to sing.

Ballad Of A Broken Nose

Bart is an eternal optimist. At thirteen years old, he’s had a hard life. But Bart knows that things won’t get any better if you have a negative attitude. His mother has pushed him into boxing lessons so that Bart can protect himself, but Bart already has defense mechanisms: he is relentlessly positive…and he loves opera.

The Lonely Giant

In the middle of a vast forest lives a giant who spends his days hurling and heaving, smashing and bashing. Over time, the animals flee as their homes vanish, the birdsong dwindles away to silence, and, finally, the forest itself disappears.

The Cartographer’s Daughter

Legends say that the island of Joya was once a place where songbirds sang in every tree and the islanders were free to come and go as they pleased. That was before the harsh-ruling Governor arrived, and ravens drove out the native birds. Now there are no songbirds, and the people are forbidden to travel beyond the forest that separates them from the rest of the island.

Poison Is Not Polite

In 1930s England, schoolgirl detectives Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are at Daisy’s home for the holidays when someone falls seriously, mysteriously ill at a family party, but no one present is what they seem–and everyone has a secret or two–so the Detective Society must do everything they can to reveal the truth no matter the consequences.