Colorado Parks & Wildlife Research Library

Jeffrey Lionel "Maniac" Magee might havelived a normal life if a trolley accident hadn't made him an orphan. After living with his unhappy and uptight aunt and uncle for eight years, he decides to run-- and not just run away, but run. And this is where the myth of Maniac Magee begins, as he changes the lives of a racially divided small town with his amazing and legendary feats.

"Meet the marvelous Pyes: There is Mrs. Pye, the youngest mother in town; Mr. Pye, a famous bird man, who handles all the nation's important bird problems; Rachel Pye, who is so reasonable she can make unreasonable ideas sound like good ones; Jerry Pye, who knows about rocks of all sorts and plans to grow up to be a rock man; and Uncle Bennie, who is only three years old. Last is Ginger Pye, the "intellectual dog." The most famous pup in all of Cranbury,...

The crippled son of a powerful nobleman in fourteenth-century England sets out to prove his courage and his right to be recognized by the King. In England during the Middle Ages, a courageous young boy who suddenly loses the use of his legs is forced to learn how to deal with his new disability.

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

When their father invites a mail-order bride to come live with them in their prairie home, Caleb and Anna are captivated by their new mother and hope that she will stay.

Ivan is an easygoing gorilla. Living at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, he has grown accustomed to humans watching him through the glass walls of his domain. He rarely misses his life in the jungle. In fact, he hardly ever thinks about it at all. Instead, Ivan thinks about TV shows he's seen and about his friends Stella, an elderly elephant, and Bob, a stray dog. But mostly Ivan thinks about art and how to capture the taste of a mango or...

After the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of their own.

As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnate is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.