For years, Harris Hayes has taught his daughter, Aggie, the ways of the northern woods. So when her mother's depression worsens, Harris shows the girl how to find and sketch the nests of wild birds as an antidote to sadness. Aggie is in a tree far overhead when her unpredictable mother spots her and forbids her to climb. Angry, the ten-year-old accidentally lights a tragic fire, then flees downriver. She lands her boat near untamed forest, where she...

Rollo the troll is tired of chores, but after spending time on the tundra with various animal families, from owls to moose, he realizes that he wants to be home for Christmas even if that means behaving himself.

"When Great Aunt Beauregard announces her intentions to bring budding engineer John into the family business of coffin manufacturing for the rest of his natural life--and, worse, to teach his sister Page to embalm--John decides enough is enough, and the two of them head out on the lam, maybe joining the circus"--

A boy named Mark, tired of being sick with cancer, conceives a plan to climb Mount Rainier, and runs away from home with his dog, Beau--but with over two hundred miles between him and his goal, and only anger at his situation to drive him on nothing will be easy, and only his best friend, Jessie, suspects where he is heading.

"Willow loves the woods near her house. They're calm and quiet, so different from her own turbulent emotions, which she keeps locked away. When her emotions get the better of her one day, she decides to run away into the woods. There, she meets Pilu, a lost tree spirit who can't find her way back home--which turns out to be the magnolia grove Willow's mom used to take her to. Willow offers to help Pilu, and the two quickly become friends. But the...

Ever since her mother left, Maia has struggled with depression, which has only gotten worse since her father remarried; so Maia decides run away to Canada to find her mother, together with Billy, a boy who now lives in a group home and has his own familytragedy--but when they finally arrive in Tadoussac, Quebec, Maia discovers that even her mother has been keeping secrets.

"Hoping to strike it rich, eleven-year-old Jasper and his older brother Melvin set out on a treacherous journey to Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush"-- Jasper and his older brother Melvin set out on a treacherous journey to Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush, desperate to get away from their drunkard of a father. Onboard a ship, Jasper overhears a rumor about One-Eyed Riley, an old coot who's long since gone, but is said to have left clues to...

When Mandie Shaw runs away from her log cabin home in 1899, she convinces Cherokee friends to help her escape into the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. After a treacherous journey, they reach the extravagant mansion of Uncle John, only to discover that his ship has been lost at sea. The house staff, headed by caretaker Jason Bond, kindly allows Mandie to remain. When strangers arrive claiming to be the rightful heirs to Uncle John's fortune,...