• Recommended Titles in our Catalogue
• Aggie's Home - Joan Lowery Nixon
  Aggie was abandoned as an infant and raised in the Asylum for Homeless Waifs in New York City. She continued to dream that her mother would return for her. Instead, she is sent out west on the Orphan train and adopted by the eccentric Bradon family. See also other books in the Orphan Train series.
  
• Anybodies - N.E. Bode
  After learning that she is not the biological daughter of boring Mr. and Mrs. Drudger, Fern embarks on magical adventures with her real father and finally finds "a place that feels like home."
  
• Beyond the Deepwoods - Paul Stewart
  Thirteen-year-old Twig, having always looked and felt different from his woodtroll family, learns that he is adopted and travels out of his Deepwoods home to find the place where he belongs.
  
• City of Light, City of Dark: A Comic Book Novel - Avi
  Asterel races against time to locate a token that will prevent the Kurbs from freezing the city.
  
• Coraline - Neil Gaiman
  Looking for excitement, Coraline ventures through a mysterious door into a world that is similar, yet disturbingly different from her own, where she must challenge a gruesome entity in order to save herself, her parents, and the souls of three others.
  
• Count Karlstein - Philip Pullman
  In the mountains of Switzerland, the wicked Count Karlstein plots to abandon his two orphaned nieces in a hunting lodge as prey for the Demon Huntsman and his ghostly hounds.
  
• Everything on a Waffle - Polly Horvath
  Eleven-year-old Primrose lives in a small British Columbia fishing village and recounts her experiences and all that she learns about human nature and the unpredictability of life in the months after her parents are lost at sea.
  
• Field Guide - Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black
  After moving to a creepy old mansion, the Grace siblings come to believe that an old book with hand-drawn pictures holds the key to all the weird things that have been going on. (First book in the Spiderwick Chronicles series)
  
• Giggler Treatment - Roddy Doyle
  A talking dog, the Mack children and the small elf-like Gigglers themselves must try to stop the prank that the Gigglers have mistakenly set in motion to punish Mr. Mack for being mean to his children.
  
• House Called Awful End - Philip Ardagh
  When Eddie Dickens’s ill parents become “a bit crinkly round the edges,” he is taken in by Mad Uncle Jack and Mad Aunt Maude and embarks on adventures that involve strolling actors, St. Horrid’s Home for Grateful Orphans, and a carnival float shaped like a giant cow.
  
• House with a Clock in its Walls - John Bellairs
  Lewis goes to live with his magician uncle in a mansion that has a hidden clock ticking off the minutes until doomsday. If you enjoy this book, there are many other adventure stories by John Bellairs.
  
• Island of the Aunts - Eva Ibbotson
  As they get older, several sisters decide that they must kidnap children and bring them to their secluded island home to help with the work of caring for an assortment of unusual sea creatures.
  
• Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson
  David’s greedy uncle tries to cheat him out of his inheritance by having him kidnapped and sold in the American colonies as a slave.
  
• Leon and the Spitting Image - Allen Kurzweil
  Leon, a fourth grader at The Ethical School, tries to outwit the school bully and learn to sew for fanatical teacher Miss Cronheim, with unexpected help from his final project - a doll with magical powers.
  
• Matilda - Roald Dahl
  Matilda uses her unusual mental powers to get rid of an evil, child-hating headmistress.
  
• Measle and the Wrathmonk - Ian Ogilvy
  Twelve-year-old orphan Measle Stubbs is shrunk down to half an inch tall and placed in a toy train set by his evil guardian, the Wrathmonk.
  
• Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism - Georgia Byng
  Unlucky and unloved, Molly Moon, living in a dreary orphanage, discovers a hidden talent and hypnotizes her way to stardom in New York City.
  
• Monsieur Eek - David Ives
  When a chimpanzee arrives in MacOongafoondsen, he is put on trial for being a thief and a French spy, resulting in some changes to the tiny town that delight Emmaline Perth, his thirteen-year-old defender.
  
• Ogre Downstairs - Diana Wynne Jones
  When a disagreeable man with two boys marries a widow with three children, family adjustments are complicated by two magic chemistry sets which cause strange things to happen around the house.
  
• Pure Dead Magic - Debi Gliori
  When their father is kidnapped and danger looms, the Strega-Borgia children, their mysterious new nanny, and a giant tarantula use magic and actual trips through the Internet to bring peace to their Scottish castle.
  
• Secret of Castle Cant - K.P. Bath
  When orphan Lucy Wickwright is brought to Castle Cant to be serving girl to the Baron’s daughter, she becomes involved with revolutionaries and uncovers palace intrigues.
  
• Sparrows in the Scullery - Barbara Brooks Wallace
  Orphaned young Colley went from a life of privilege to a Home for Boys, where he must survive being forced to work in a dangerous glass factory as well as someone’s efforts to kill him. See also other stories by Barbara Wallace: Cousins in the Castle, Ghosts in the Gallery, Peppermints in the Parlor, Secret in St Something, and The Twin in the Tavern.
  
• Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, some Soup and a Spool of Thread - Kate DiCamillo
  The adventures of a small mouse, the princess that he loves, the servant girl who longs to be a princess, and a devious rat determined to bring them all to ruin.
  
• Wolves of Willoughby Chase - Joan Aiken
  When Bonnie’s parents leave Willoughby Chase for a sea voyage, she and cousin Sylvia go from the care of cruel Miss Slighcarp to a prisonlike school for orphans.
  

Updated January 2008