Orphan Eleven

For readers who love the circus, and anyone who has dreamed of finding the perfect home, comes an engaging adventure from a Newbery Honor-winning storyteller. Four orphans have escaped from the Home for Friendless Children. One is Lucy, who used to talk and sing, until life at the Home silenced her. The other orphans find work and friends at the circus, but no one will hire a mute girl. Lucy must find her voice or she will be left behind when the circus goes on the rails. Meanwhile, people are searching for Lucy, and her puzzling past is about to catch up with her. This irresistible, heartfelt novel by the master storyteller of the Tales from Alcatraz series is full of marvels and surprises.

A vulnerable, honest and deeply personal guide to finding your way through grief. Flora Baker was only twenty when her mum died suddenly of cancer. Her coping strategy was simple: ignore the magnitude of her loss. But when her dad became terminally ill nine years later, Flora was forced to confront the reality of grief. She had to accept that her life had changed forever. In The Adult Orphan Club, Flora draws on a decade of experience with grief and parent loss to explore all the chaotic ways that grief affects us, and how we can learn to navigate it. Written with the newly bereaved in mind and packed with practical tips and advice, this book guides the reader through every step of their grief journey and opens up the death conversation in an honest, heartfelt and accessible way. Whether you’re grieving your own loss or supporting someone else through grief, The Adult Orphan Club will show you that you’re not broken, and you’re not alone.

Through the diary of 10-year-old Victoria Cope, we learn about the arrival of ragged Mary Anna, one of the thousands of impoverished British children who were sent to Canada at the beginning of the century. Mary Anna joins the Cope family as a servant and is treated well, but she has to cope with the initial apprehension of the family members and the loss of her brother, Jasper, who was placed with another family. Victoria vows to help Mary Anna find her brother, so they can be a family once again.

THE FIRST BOOK IN A HISTORICAL SERIES THAT'S PERFECT FOR FANS OF THE BOXCAR CHILDREN! Jack, Frances, and Frances’s younger brother Harold have been ripped from the world they knew in New York and sent to Kansas on an orphan train at the turn of the century. As the train chugs closer and closer to its destination, the children begin to hear terrible rumors about the lives that await them. And so they decide to change their fate the only way they know how. . . . They jump off the train. There, in the middle of the woods, they meet a boy who will transform their lives forever. His name is Alexander, and he tells them they've come to a place nobody knows about—especially not adults—and "where all children in need of freedom are accepted." It's a place called Wanderville, Alexander says, and now Jack, Frances, and Harold are its very first citizens.

'Unforgettable' - ROSAMUND LUPTON Virginia Wrathmell has always known she will meet her death on the marsh. One snowy New Year's Eve, at the age of eighty-six, Virginia feels the time has finally come. New Year's Eve, 1939. Virginia is ten, an orphan arriving to meet her new parents at their mysterious house, Salt Winds. Her new home sits on the edge of a vast marsh, a beautiful but dangerous place. War feels far away out here amongst the birds and shifting sands - until the day a German fighter plane crashes into the marsh. The people at Salt Winds are the only ones to see it. What happens next is something Virginia will regret for the next seventy-five years, and which will change the whole course of her life.

Jim Dent, author of the New York Times bestselling The Junction Boys, returns with his most powerful story of human courage and determination. More than a century ago, a school was constructed in Fort Worth, Texas, for the purpose of housing and educating the orphans of Texas Freemasons. It was a humble project that for years existed quietly on a hillside east of town. Life at the Masonic Home was about to change, though, with the arrival of a lean, bespectacled coach by the name of Rusty Russell. Here was a man who could bring rain in the midst of a drought. Here was a man who, in virtually no time at all, brought the orphans' story into the homes of millions of Americans. In the 1930s and 1940s, there was nothing bigger in Texas high school football than the Masonic Home Mighty Mites—a group of orphans bound together by hardship and death. These youngsters, in spite of being outweighed by at least thirty pounds per man, were the toughest football team around. They began with nothing—not even a football—yet in a few years were playing for the state championship on the highest level of Texas football. This is a winning tribute to a courageous band of underdogs from a time when America desperately needed fresh hope and big dreams. The Mighty Mites remain a notable moment in the long history of American sports. Just as significant is the depth of the inspirational message. This is a profound lesson in fighting back and clinging to faith. The real winners in Texas high school football were not the kids from the biggest schools, or the ones wearing the most expensive uniforms. They were the scrawny kids from a tiny orphanage who wore scarred helmets and faded jerseys that did not match, kids coached by a devoted man who lived on peanuts and drove them around in a smoke-belching old truck. In writing a story of unforgettable characters and great football, Jim Dent has come forward to reclaim his place as one of the top sports authors in America today. A remarkable and inspirational story of an orphanage and the man who created one of the greatest football teams Texas has ever known . . . this is their story—the original Friday Night Lights. "This just might be the best sports book ever written. Jim Dent has crafted a story that will go down as one of the most artistic, one of the most unforgettable, and one of the most inspirational ever. Twelve Mighty Orphans will challenge Hoosiers as the feel-good sports story of our lifetime. Naturally, being from Texas, I am biased. Hooray for the Mighty Mites.'' —Verne Lundquist, CBS Sports "Coach Rusty Russell and the Mighty Mites will steal your heart as they overcome every obstacle imaginable to become a respected football team. Take an orphanage, the Depression, and mix it with Texas high school football, and Jim Dent has authored another winner, this one about the ultimate underdog.'' —Brent Musburger, ABC Sports/ESPN "No state has a roll call of legendary high school football stories like we do in Texas, and, admittedly, some of those stories have been ‘expanded' over the years when it comes to the truth. But let Jim Dent tell you about the Mighty Mites of Masonic Home, the pride of Fort Worth in the dark days of the Depression. Read this book. You will think it's fiction. You will think it's a Hollywood script. But Twelve Mighty Orphans is the truth, and nothing but. It is powerful stuff. Some eighty years later, the Mighty Mites' story remains so sacred, not even a Texan would dare tamper with these facts. And Jim Dent tells it like it was." — Randy Galloway, columnist, Fort-Worth Star Telegram