Deschutes Public Library

A young orphan boy is ordered by his master to infiltrate Shakespeare's acting troupe in order to steal the script of "Hamlet," but he discovers instead the meaning of friendship and loyalty.

In sixteenth-century France, ruled by a Church that overtaxes peasants and burns heretics, Marius must postpone his apprenticeship to care for his six-year-old brother, whose birth took their mother's life, and who the villagers, backed by the Church, believe will become a "loup garou" -- a werewolf.

While working as an apprentice in a London theater company in 1597, fourteen-year-old Richard uncovers a mystery involving the disappearance of his father and a traitorous plot to overthow Queen Elizabeth.

In 1592, twelve-year-old Isabel dreams of adventure and finds it, not only on her journey from her London home to her aunt's manor house in Northamptonshire, but also through the healing arts her aunt teaches her.

A Native American boy with a special gift to "see" beyond his poor eyesight journeys with an old warrior to a land of mystery and beauty.

In the Yoruba village of Oyo in 1440, Kai has the opportunity of realizing her dream of becoming a sculptor, but at the price of separation from her life in Ife and the loss of her new-found closeness to her sister.

In a series of diary entries, Princess Elizabeth, the eleven-year-old daughter of King Henry VIII, celebrates holidays and birthdays, relives her mother's execution, revels in her studies, and agonizes over her father's health.

Presents the diary of thirteen-year-old Nzingha, a sixteenth-century West African princess who loves to hunt and hopes to lead her kingdom one day against the invasion of the Portuguese slave traders.

While waiting anxiously for others to choose a husband for her, Isabella, the future Queen of Spain, keeps a diary account of her life as a member of the royal family.

Frustrated with the restrictions her gender imposes on her life, fourteen-year-old Donata, disguised as a boy, sneaks out of her noble family's house to roam the streets of late sixteenth-century Venice and then must confront the repercussions of her actions.

In 1793 Philadelphia, sixteen-year-old Matilda Cook, separated from her sick mother, learns about perseverance and self-reliance when she is forced to cope with the horrors of a yellow fever epidemic.

As the French and Indian War rages in October of 1759, Saxso, a fourteen-year-old Abenaki boy, pursues the English rangers who have attacked his village and taken his mother and sisters hostage.

When an injury prevents his father from going into northern Canada with fur traders, thirteen-year-old Pierre decides to take his father's place as a voyageur.

In the 1790s, an eccentric young man nicknamed Johnny Appleseed feels called by God to travel through the American West planting apple seeds that will feed the hungry and produce more seeds for planting and trading.

In England in 1627, newly-orphaned Pen Downing leaves her country village for London where she is abducted and sent to Virginia to work as an indentured servant.

Moments after he steals a document from a man's pocket, an illiterate young pickpocket in eighteenth-century London witnesses the man's murder by two men who want the document.

When kidnapped by English Loyalists during the Revolutionary War, thirteen-year-old Hope draws on every ounce of courage within her to respond to the ordeal.

Eleven-year-old Abigail presents a diary account of life in Valley Forge from December 1777 to July 1778 as General Washington prepares his troops to fight the British.

Follows the adventures of an Arabian stallion brought to England to become one of the founding sires of the Thoroughbred breed, and the mute Arab stable boy who tended him with loyalty and devotion all his life.

At the beginning of the Revolutionary War, hoping to keep bloodshed away from their valley, a twelve-year-old Delaware Indian boy and his white friend search sacred land for the bones of a legendary beast.

Twelve-year-old Mem presents a diary account of the trip she and her family made on the Mayflower in 1620 and their first year in the New World.

In 1769, thirteen-year-old Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna, daughter of Empress Maria Theresa, begins a journal chronicling her life at the Austrian court and her preparations for her future role as queen of France.

When the beatings she receives from her cruel aunt get worse, Kazy decides to run away from her home in seventeenth-century England and take her little sister Beth with her.

Relates the experiences of a young Senegalese girl brought as a slave to the Danish owned Caribbean island of St. John as she participates in the slave revolt of 1733-1734.

In 1764, when Kaya and her family reunite with other Nez Perce Indians to fish for the red salmon, she learns that bragging, even about her swift horse, can lead to trouble. Includes historical notes on the Nez Perce Indians.

While going through the possessions of a deceased guest who owed them money, the mistress of the inn and her son find a treasure map that leads to a pirate fortune as well as great danger.

In seventeenth-century London, Meg, who has little interest in cooking, needlework, or other homemaking skills, dreams of becoming a bookseller and someday inheriting her widowed father's book store.

Relates events in author Louisa May Alcott's tenth year, 1843, when her family moved from Boston to a farm where, along with an odd assortment of idealists, they try to establish a community based on equality and love.

Driven from their impoverished Irish village, fifteen-year-old Maura and her younger brother meet their landlord's runaway son in Liverpool while all three wait for a ship to America; their fates continue to intertwine on board ship and in the New World.

Sixteen-year-old Will Spencer leaves home to become a peddler, but gets more than he bargained for when he agrees to go to Kentucky, steal two slaves, and help them reach their brother in Canada.

In 1861 twelve-year-old Truth, a Quaker girl from Indiana, is staying with relatives who run a North Carolina station of the Underground Railroad, when her world is changed by the beginning of the Civil War.

Chronicles the adventures of eleven-year-old Caddie growing up with her six brothers and sisters on the Wisconsin frontier in the mid-nineteenth century.

In 1895, after his mother's death, twelve-year-old Nathan moves with his father and grandfather to Pea Island off the coast of North Carolina, where he hopes to join the all-black crew at the nearby lifesaving station, despite his father's objections.

In the late nineteenth century, twelve-year-old Liliha is sent to the Kalaupapa Leprosy Colony at Molokai, Hawaii, where she struggles to endure savage living conditions and people, as well as her own disease.

Soft Rain, a nine-year-old Cherokee girl, is forced to relocate, along with her family, from North Carolina to the West.

In 1849, twelve-year-old California Morning Whipple, who renames herself Lucy, is distraught when her mother moves the family from Massachusetts to a rough California mining town.

After his family dies of consumption in 1849, twelve-year-old Lucas becomes a doctor's apprentice.

Northerners, Southerners, generals, couriers, dreaming boys, and worried sisters describe the glory, the horror, the thrill, and the disillusionment of the first battle of the Civil War.

When a terrible blight attacks Ireland's potato crop in 1845, twelve-year-old Nory Ryan's courage and ingenuity help her family and neighbors survive.

Details the history of the Underground Railroad from the roots of slavery through the post-Emancipation era by focusing on the lives of the participants.

In 1818 Carlito, an eleven-year-old boy in the Spanish-owned town of Monterey, California, sees his quiet life threatened when the Argentinian privateer Hippolyte de Bouchard attacks with his pirate ships.

When their father invites a mail-order bride to come live with them in their prairie home, Caleb and Anna are captivated by their new mother and hope that she will stay.

A ten-year-old bobbin girl working in a textile mill in Lowell, Massachusetts, in the 1830s, must make a difficult decision--will she participate in the first workers' strike in Lowell?

Sent home alone for misbehaving in church, Tommy discovers that his house is a station on the underground railroad.

Brought to London under mysterious circumstances by his tutor, a young boy seeks the help of Sherlock Holmes when his tutor is kidnapped and he himself is threatened with the same fate.

A young Indian woman, accompanied by her infant and cruel husband, experiences joy and heartbreak when she joins the Lewis and Clark Expedition seeking a way to the Pacific.

While living on a Vermont poor farm during 1855 and 1856, Jip learns his identity and that of his mother and comes to understand how he arrived at this place.

Impoverished Vermont farm girl Lyddie Worthen is determined to gain her independence by becoming a factory worker in Lowell, Massachusetts, in the 1840s.

An engrossing fictional account of a young peasant boy caught up in the Taiping Rebellion in 19th century China.

Shortly after the Christmas of 1863, fourteen-year-old Moses thinks he is beginning a new free life when he becomes part of a group of other former slaves headed for a small island off the coast of Haiti.

A horse in nineteenth-century England recounts his experiences with both good and bad masters.

Two young slave girls escape from a plantation in Mississippi and wind a hazardous route toward freedom in Canada via the Underground Railroad.

In 1805, a thirteen-year-old slave and his friend make a dangerous escape fom Charleston, S.C. and stowaway to head north toward freedom.

While living in Texas in 1858, fourteen-year-old Caleb faces a dilemma in deciding whether or not to assist fugitive slaves in their run for freedom.

In nineteenth-century China, a young girl struggles to protect her family from the threat of bandits, famine, and an ideological conflict between her father and brother.