With insight and a light touch, best-selling, Newbery Honor-winning author Gary D. Schmidt tells two poignant, linked stories: that of a grieving girl and a boy trying to escape his violent past. Following the death of her closest friend in summer 1968, Meryl Lee Kowalski goes off to St. Elene's Preparatory Academy for Girls, where she struggles to navigate the venerable boarding school's traditions and a social structure heavily weighted toward students...

When popular Lizzie Lovett goes missing, seventeen-year-old Hawthorne, a lonely misfit, finds herself becoming obsessed with solving the mystery.

Perfect for fans of Hatchet and the I Survived series, this harrowing middle grade debut novel-in-verse from a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet tells the story of a young girl who wakes up one day to find herself utterly alone in her small Colorado town. When twelve-year-old Maddie hatches a scheme for a secret sleepover with her two best friends, she ends up waking up to a nightmare. She's alone--left behind in a town that has been mysteriously evacuated...

Alberto, the town's coffin maker, and Tito, a runaway boy, both lonely after suffering tragic losses, learn the power of friendship as they try to escape the shadows of their pasts.

"Betty can build just about anything. But she's lonely and longs for a friend--so she builds one! She welds on springs and attaches wheels while her little brother Toby zips around hoping to catch her attention. When Betty's creation goes haywire, Toby surprises his sister in a big way!"--back cover

Baby Kipling, a penguin, misses his mama when she goes on a trip.

"Daniel Misumi has just moved to a new house. It's big and old and far away from his friends and his life before. And it's haunted--or is it? Megabat was just napping on a papaya one day when he was stuffed in a box and shipped halfway across the world. Now he's living in an old house far from home, feeling sorry for himself and accidentally scaring the people who live there. Daniel realizes it's not a ghost in his new house. It's a bat. And he can...

"A girl from a faraway place begins her first day at school. She doesn't speak the language and she looks different. She just doesn't fit in. But one day, she makes an unexpected friend--a squirrel! Then a rabbit joins them. Soon the girl's fuzzy woodland friends are followed by human ones and school becomes more fun! When a surprising new student joins the class, the girl and her new friends know just how to make him feel at home."--

"Is there someone out there for everyone? Two lonely souls find each other in this unusual tale of friendship and belonging from award-winning comic writer Cary Fagan. In her North American debut, illustrator Banafsheh Erfanian brings ornate artistry to the cage and birds that inhabit this surprisingly human story."--

"Little Brown is grumpy and lonely at the dog park, until he decides to take matters into his own hands."--