Colorado Parks & Wildlife Research Library

An eleven-year-old foster child tries to cope with her longings and fears as she schemes against everyone who tries to be friendly. At eleven, Gilly is nobody's real kid. If only she could find her beautiful mother, Courtney, and live with her instead of in the ugly foster home where she has just been placed! How could she, the great Gilly Hopkins, known throughout the county for her brilliance and unmanageability, be expected to tolerate Maime Trotter,...

In the country of Carthya, a devious nobleman engages four orphans in a brutal competition to be selected to impersonate the king's long-missing son in an effort to avoid a civil war.

Nineteen-year-old returning champion Sean Kendrick competes against Puck Connolly, the first girl ever to ride in the annual Scorpio Races, both trying to keep hold of their dangerous water horses long enough to make it to the finish line.

A boy worries that his aunt, who is raising him, will abandon him if she marries.

Philip Carey, a handicapped orphan, is brought up by a clergyman, but Philip sheds his religious faith and begins to study art in Paris.

Orphaned Rose Campbell finds it difficult to fit in when she goes to live with her six aunts, her uncle, and seven mischievous boy cousins.

The Big Friendly Giant is no ordinary bone-crunching giant. He is far too nice and it's lucky for Sophie that he is. If she had been carried off by any of the other giants she would have been breakfast. When Sophie hears that the giants are headed to England to steal some little children, she and the BFG decide they must stop them once and for all.

Fifteen year-old Daniel has followed in his parents' footsteps as the Alien Hunter, exterminating beings on The List of Alien Outlaws on Terra Firma, but when he faces his first of the top ten outlaws, the very existence of Earth and another planet are at stake.

Recently recruited and trained as a special agent by M16, the British secret service, 14-year-old West Londoner Alex Rider is sent to infiltrate an ulta-private school where the rich and powerful send their uncontrollable, rebellious sons. What he discovers in the mountaintop fortress of the campus are enough armed guards to repel an invasion-and new classmates who have become eerie copies of each other in their compliantattitudes and actions.

Set in rural Maine in the first half of this century, it tells the story of Dr. Wilbur Larch--obstetrician and director of the orphanage in the town of St. Clouds. It is also the story of his favorite orphan, Homer, who is never adopted.