Lois Lowry

A tongue-in-cheek take on classic themes in children's literature, in which the four Willoughby children set out to become "deserving orphans" after their neglectful parents embark on a treacherous around-the-world adventure, leaving them in the care of an odious nanny.

Told in two voices, two outcasts in an Iron Age village befriend each other, as disabled, orphaned Varick helps Estrild achieve her dream of becoming the first female warrior. Inspired by the Windeby bog body.

"A seventh-grade assignment requires Anastasia to choose a future career. How can she prepare for a real-life career when she can't even prepare a term paper without ten or twelve false starts? Anastasia hits the world of modeling school, where she soon learns there's more to modeling than just being pretty"--Back cover.

Her family's new organized schedule for easy housekeeping makes thirteen-year-old Anastasia confident that she can run the household while her mother is out of town, until she hits unexpected complications.

Katy, the precocious ten-year-old daughter of the town doctor, befriends a retarded boy.

Four-year-old Sam's appearance as a zookeeper at his nursery school's Future Job Day leads him to a number of exciting activities and discoveries, including reading.

Anastasia continues the perilous process of growing up as her thirteenth year involves her in conquering the art of rope climbing, playing Cupid for a recently widowered uncle, and surviving a crush on her gym teacher.

As usual, Lowry delivers tight, page-turning prose, plenty of humor, and characters right out of readers' neighborhoods.Kirkus Reviews What could possibly go wrong when Anastasia Krupnik walks to a mailbox early one morning with two packages and a dog? A mail mix-up of a most embarrassing kind. Instead of mailing the letter, she deposits her dogs morning business! As her school Values class debates moral issues and the local police confiscate the...

Thirty years after their disappearance, the previously frozen Willoughbys have thawed out and returned from the Alps, to the consternation of their children and grandchildren.

Separated early in life from his mother and siblings, Keeper tells of his adventures with various human masters and his continual search for his little sister.