Running away from home isn't as easy as Ren thinks it will be. At least she isn't running very far-just a few miles to the ghost town of Fortune . . . or Mis-Fortune as everyone else calls it. Mis-Fortune on the Mississippi. Supposedly, there's an abandoned school on the outskirts with cheap rooms for rent. Ren knows her plan sounds crazy. But with only a few more weeks until Dad comes home from his tour of duty in Afghanistan, she also knows she has to do something drastic so Mom will come to her senses and stop seeing that creep Rick Littleton for good. From the moment she enters the school's shadowy halls, Ren finds herself drawn into its secrets. Every night old Mrs. Baxter, the landlady, wanders the building on a mysterious quest. What could she be up to? And can Mrs. Baxter's outlandish plan to transform the gym into a pearl-button museum ever succeed? With a quirky new friend named Hugh at her side, Ren sets out to solve the mystery that could save Fortune from fading away. But what about her family's future? Can that be saved too?

Eleven-year-old April is delighted when President and Mrs. Hoover build a school near her Madison County, Virginia, home but her family's poverty, grief over the accidental death of her brother, and other problems may mean that April can never learn to read from the wonderful teacher, Miss Vest.

Product Description: When 12-year-old Linc Crenshaw decides he wants to go to public school, his professor mom isn't so happy with the idea. He's convinced it will be the ticket to a new social life. Instead, it's a disaster when his mom shows up at their field trip to the local cemetery to lecture them on gravestones, and Linc sees her through his fellow-students' eyes...read more

While working with her deaf father to help him manage his special school for the deaf in Alabama in 1948, Gussie Davis meets a reverend who seeks the child's potential for music and encourages her to attend his church, yet when her father won't let her go, Gussie knows she must take a stand and find a way to make him understand how important it is to her in her hearing world.

Recounts the events leading up to the war--North-South rivalry, slavery, John Brown's attack on Harper's Ferry, and more

Traces the events of the Civil War from the first battle to the surrender, with emphasis on the experiences of the individual soldier (view table of contents)

Recounts the quest for and finding of gold in the Klondike region of the Yukon Territory of northwestern Canada (1896-1898), an event that brought joy to some, heartbreak to many, and adventure to all.