Amid the crumbling splendour of wintertime Venice, two orphans are on the run. The mysterious Thief Lord offers shelter, but a terrible danger is gathering force...

'This is a pursuit thriller of the highest quality, reminiscent of the classic of the genre, Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male' Irish Independent 'Both an engrossing thriller and the story of a man struggling in the grip of historical events that he only partially understands' Sunday Times In the snow, death is not the coldest thing waiting for you... From out of the whiteness, a dark figure comes... December, 1930, Ukraine. After the horrors of war, Luka wants a quiet life with his family. His village has, so far, remained hidden from the advancing Soviet brutality - but everything changes the day a stranger arrives, pulling a sled bearing a terrible cargo: the bodies of two children. When the villagers' fear turns deadly, they think they have saved themselves. And then a little girl vanishes. Luka is the only man with the skills to find the stolen child in these frozen lands. And though his toughest enemy is the man he tracks through the harsh winter landscape, his strongest bond is a promise to his family back home...

For almost three decades, renowned baby-seller Georgia Tann ran a children's home in Memphis, Tennessee -- selling her charges to wealthy clients nationwide, Joan Crawford among them. Part social history, part detective story, part expose, The Baby Thief is a riveting investigative narrative that explores themes that continue to reverberate today.

Marin loves the sandwiches his parents make for him—every day they're different and more delicious than the last. One morning, someone dares to steal his favorite sandwich: ham-cheddar-kale. Furious, Marin begins a fevered and famished investigation to unmask the thief. The days go by, the suspects multiply, and Marin's sandwiches continue to disappear. This droll, graphic caper is a funny school mystery exploring the high stakes of low blood sugar. The first in a series, the book's witty text and graphic illustrations make this funny school mystery perfect for early and advanced readers alike—and for anyone who's been the victim of lunchtime crime.

A remarkable, true story about raising an unusually challenging child, in this case one who struggles to reciprocate love. Unfolding over nearly 20 years, the story focuses on the struggles of a Russian orphan, Sonya, mistreated early in life, ultimately diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder, and the family that adopted and tried to raise her. Sonya's story will allow a reader to better understand the immeasurable impact of a caregiver early in a child's life and also grasp why some bounce back from terrible childhood adversity and some don't.

Pinkerton doesn't understand his owner’s commands. When told to come, he jumps out the window. When asked to fetch, he destroys the slippers instead. Pinkerton’s desperate owners take him to obedience school, but he flunks out in record time. Then one night a burglar breaks into their house, and Pinkerton is able to put his bad habits to good use. This silly charmer of a story was included on the Booklist and Horn Book best of the year lists and inspired four sequels about the impossibly clueless but irresistibly sweet Pinkerton. Now, in honor of its 35th anniversary, Steven Kellogg has updated the art and text (most notably removing the gun that appeared in the original edition), and has written an introductory note about the book’s history.

Only children don’t have to share bedrooms, toys, or the backseat of a car. They don’t have to share allowances, inheritances, or their parents’ attention. But when they get into trouble, they can’t just blame their imaginary friends. In Only Child, twenty-one acclaimed writers tell the truth about life without siblings—the bliss of solitude, the ache of loneliness, and everything in between.In this unprecedented collection, writers like Judith Thurman, Kathryn Harrison, John Hodgman, and Peter Ho Davies reflect on the single, transforming episode that defined each of them as an only child. For some it came while lurking around the edges of a friend’s boisterous family, longing to be part of the chaos. For others, it came in sterile hospital halls, while single-handedly caring for a parent with cancer. They write about the parents who raised them, from the devoted to the dismissive. They describe what it’s like to be an only child of divorce, an only because of the death of a sibling, an only who reveled in it or an only who didn’t. In candid, poignant, and often hilarious essays, these authors—including the children of Erica Jong, Alice Walker, and Phyllis Rose—explore a lifetime of onliness. As adults searching for partners, they are faced with the unique challenge of trying to turn a longtime trio into a quartet. In deciding whether to give junior a sib, they weigh the benefits of producing the friend they never had against the fear that they will not know how to divide their love and attention among multiples. As they watch their parents age, they come face-to-face with the onus of being their family’s sole historian.Whether you’re an only child curious about how your experiences compare to others’, the partner or spouse of an only, a parent pondering whether to stop at one, or someone with siblings who’s always wondered how the other half lives, Only Child offers a look behind the scenes and into the hearts of twenty-one smart and sensitive writers as they reveal the truth about growing up—and being a grown-up—solo.

In this “delightful mash-up of Little House on the Prairie and The Spiderwick Chronicles” (SLJ), experience life on the prairie—with one fantastical twist! Louisa Brody’s life on the Colorado prairie is not at all what she expected. Her dear Pa, accused of thievery, is locked thirty miles away in jail. She’s living with the awful Smirches, her closest neighbors and the very family that accused her Pa of the horrendous crime. And now she’s discovered one very cantankerous—and magical—secret beneath the hazel grove. With her life flipped upside-down, it’s up to Louisa, her sassy friend Jessamine, and that cranky secret to save Pa from a guilty verdict. Ten bold illustrations from Erwin Madrid accompany seasoned storyteller Melissa Wiley’s vibrant and enchanting tale of life on the prairie—with one magical twist.

"Owen Kiskaddon first came to the court of the formidable King Severn as a prisoner, winning favor with the stormy monarch by masquerading as a boy truly blessed by the Fountain. Nine years hence, the once-fearful Owen has grown into a confident young man, mentored in battle and politics by Duke Horwath and deeply in love with his childhood friend, the duke's granddaughter. But the blissful future Owen and Elysabeth Mortimer anticipate seems doomed by the king's machinations"--Page 4 of cover.

The acclaimed artist Brom brilliantly displays his multiple extraordinary talents in The Child Thief—a spellbinding re-imagining of the beloved Peter Pan story that carries readers through the perilous mist separating our world from the realm of Faerie. As Gregory Maguire did with his New York Times bestselling Wicked novels, Brom takes a classic children’s tale and turns it inside-out, painting a Neverland that, like Maguire’s Oz, is darker, richer, more complex than innocent world J.M. Barrie originally conceived. An ingeniously executed literary feat, illustrated with Brom’s sumptuous artwork, The Child Thief is contemporary fantasy at its finest—casting Peter Pan, the Lost Boys, even Captain Hook and his crew in a breathtaking new light.