Showing results by publisher "-emdashery books-" in Historical Fiction

This breathtaking, full-color illustrated fantasy is inspired by Chinese folklore, and is a companion to the Newbery Honor winner Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. Pinmei's gentle, loving grandmother always has the most thrilling tales for her granddaughter and the other villagers. However, the peace is shattered one night when soldiers of the Emperor arrive and kidnap the storyteller. Everyone knows that the Emperor wants something called the Luminous Stone That Lights the Night.

Nine-year-old Ethan Cooper has managed to keep his family together for a year in a Pennsylvania orphanage. Now he and his siblings are boarding a train headed west. He can't help but worry: Mr. and Mrs. Rush in Nebraska have agreed to adopt all four Cooper children, but what if they change their minds? In the meantime, Ethan and his siblings encounter their first dust storm, explore train cars, and watch friend after friend leave with new parents. The children dream that soon they will have a new ma and pa too.

A tormented apprentice clock-maker, a deadly mechanical knight in armour - and the sinister Dr Kalmenius, who some say is the devil.... Wind up these characters, fit them into a story on a cold winter's evening, with the snow swirling down, and suddenly, life and the story begin to merge in a peculiarly macabre - and unstoppable - way. Almost like clockwork.

From the sword in the stone and the founding of Camelot to the famed Round Table and the Lake of Enchantment, the legend of King Arthur will never lose its magic. Though simpler, this version includes all the wonderful stories - such as King Arthur’s winning of Guenievere and Merlin’s tragic downfall at the hands of the evil Vivien.

As the brutal Second World War stretches on with no end in sight, life for ordinary Dutch people in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands is fraught with peril and hardship. There is very little to eat and the population lives under the constant threat of arrest and enslavement. After the murder of her beloved uncle and the capture of her brother by the Germans, Edda is determined to do anything she can to help the resistance fight back against their oppressors. But what can a teenage girl do and how much risk is she willing to take?

When Stella Montgomery returned to the Hotel Majestic cold and wet but exhilarated by adventure, the Aunts were furious. Now they are sending Stella away to the old family home at Wormwood Mire, where she must live with two strange cousins and their governess. But within the overgrown grounds of the mouldering house, dark secrets slither and skulk, and soon Stella must be brave once more if she's to find out who -- or what -- she really is ...

It will soon be another cold winter in the Ukraine. But it's 1941, and things are different this year. Max, the devoted caretaker of an animal preserve, must learn to live with the Nazis who have overtaken this precious land. He must also learn to keep secrets - for there is a girl, Kalinka, who is hiding in the park. Kalinka has lost her home, her family, her belongings - everything but her life. Still, she has gained one small, precious gift: a relationship with the rare wild and wily Przewalski's horses that wander the preserve.

Her name is Omakayas, or Little Frog, because her first step was a hop, and she lives on an island in Lake Superior. It is 1850 and the lives of the Ojibwe have returned to a familiar rhythm: they build their birchbark houses in the summer, go to the ricing camps in the fall to harvest and feast, and move to their cozy cedar log cabins near the town of LaPointe before the first snows.

Danger is never far from Audra’s family farm in Lithuania. She always avoids the occupying Russian Cossack soldiers, who insist that everyone must become Russian - they have banned Lithuanian books, religion, culture, and even the language. But Audra knows her parents are involved in something secret and perilous. When Cossacks arrive abruptly at their door, Audra’s parents insist that she flee, taking with her an important package and instructions for where to deliver it. But escape means abandoning her parents to a terrible fate.

The land was theirs, but so were its hardships. Strawberries - big, ripe, and juicy. Ten-year-old Birdie Boyer can hardly wait to start picking them. But her family has just moved to the Florida backwoods, and they haven't even begun their planting. "Don't count your biddies 'fore they're hatched, gal young un!" her father tells her. Making the new farm prosper is not easy.

Hi! I'm Charlie (DON'T call me Charlotte – ever!). History is boring, right? Wrong! The Victorians weren't all deadly dull and drippy. Lottie certainly isn't. She's eleven – like me – but she's left school and has a job as a nursery maid. Her life is really hard, just work work work, but I bet she'd know what to do about my mum's awful boyfriend and his wimpy little son. I bet she wouldn't mess it all up like I do ...

It is 1911 and London's docks thrum with underhand deals, none so great as the arrival of a valuable, rare and exotic animal, smuggled from the depths of the Congolese rainforest. The baby gorilla stands to make one man, the shady Goliath Deeds, very, very rich – he and his right-hand man, juvenile pickpocket Toff Squabble. Heaven help anyone who dares stand in their way, not least the brave and innocent 12-year-old Nettie Beecroft, who finds herself embroiled in a dangerous rescue attempt where she encounters toshers, bone-grubbers and gangsters. Whom can Nettie trust?

Luna thinks that an evening at her aunt's butterfly club sounds deathly boring. But it turns out that the meeting, held in the Butterfly Room at the Greenwich Observatory, is not at all as Luna expects. The Butterfly Club is a society with an unusual secret...they use time travel to plunder the future for wonders. Together with her friends, Konstantin and Aidan, and a clockwork cuckoo, Luna boards the Time Train. Luna and her friends travel to 1912 and find themselves aboard a great ship travelling from Southampton to New York...the RMS Titanic.

Amy and Dan have managed to rescue one of the Cahills kidnapped by the Vespers, but the remaining hostages are still in peril. Their search for the next ransom item leads Amy and Dan to Turkey and then to Italy where a visit to the site of an ancient disaster changes everything. The Vespers are far more dangerous than the siblings ever imagined and, even worse, it looks like they have an undercover mole posing as a Cahill. Amy and Dan have to face the biggest decision of their lives with nowhere to turn... and no one to trust.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Back Home written and read by Michelle Magorian. Back Home tells the story of Rusty, returning to England after being evacuated to America for five years in the Second World War. After five happy years in America, Rusty must return to England: the place she used to call home. But it doesn't fell like home. Rusty's mother is like a stranger, her little brother doesn't know her, and why does the food taste so bad? Rusty just can't get used to the rigid rules and rationing and her strict new boarding school.

Please come to Camelot. The magic tree house whisks Jack and Annie through space and time to find that the castle of Camelot has been attacked and King Arthur has been gravely wounded. To save the kingdom - and the king - Jack and Annie have only one day to solve a riddle that will help them find a missing dragon!

After visiting Boston, Judy Moody's in the mood for liberty and freedom - freedom from her parents' rules and her pesky little brother, that is. But Judy's plans to declare independence, just like the Patriots did in 1776, wind up getting her into hot water. For sure and absolute positive, the founding fathers never had problems like hers! Will Judy be able to prove, once and for all, that she's ready for a bit more independence?

Life isn't like the movies, and 11-year-old Turtle is no Shirley Temple. She's smart and tough and has seen enough of the world not to expect a Hollywood ending. After all, it's 1935, and jobs and money and sometimes even dreams are scarce. So when Turtle's mama gets a job housekeeping for a lady who doesn't like kids, Turtle says goodbye without a tear and heads off to Key West, Florida, to stay with relatives she's never met.

A surprising twist brings Amy and Dan back to New England for their first mission on U.S. soil since the beginning of the Clue hunt. But being close to home is anything but a comfort. The siblings have learned that there's a mole in the Cahill organization.... And the traitor is one of their closest confidantes. However, this betrayal is overshadowed when Amy and Dan make an even more devastating discovery: the truth about the Vespers' real plan. Burdened with this terrifying information, Amy and Dan are forced to ask an impossible question: Is it more important to save the hostages...or stop the Vespers?

A catastrophic tornado struck Joplin, Missouri, in 2011. It was part of a larger tornado outbreak in the spring of that year and reached a maximum width of nearly one mile during its path through the southern part of the city, killing 158 people, and injuring over 1,000. It caused damages amounting to $2.8 billion, making it the costliest single tornado in US history. Lauren will bring her signature intensity to this distinctly American natural disaster, placing a young boy in the middle of one of the deadliest tornadoes to strike the United States since 1947.