Penelope Taberner Cameron is a solitary and a sickly child, a reader and a dreamer. Her mother, indeed, is of the opinion that the girl has grown all too attached to the products of her imagination and decides to send her away from London for a restorative dose of fresh country air. But staying at Thackers, in remote Derbyshire, Penelope is soon caught up in a new mystery, as she finds herself transported at unforeseeable intervals back and forth from modern to Elizabethan times. There she becomes part of a remarkable family that is, Penelope realizes, in terrible danger as they plot to free Mary, Queen of Scot, from the prison in which Queen Elizabeth has confined her.  Penelope knows the tragic end that awaits the Scottish queen but she can neither change the course of events nor persuade her new family of the hopelessness of their cause, which love, loyalty, and justice all compel them to embrace. Caught between present and past, Penelope is ever more torn by questions of freedom and fate. To travel in time, Penelope discovers, is to to be very much alone. And yet the slow recurrent rhythms of the natural world, beautifully captured by Alison Uttley, also speak of a greater ongoing life that transcends the passage of years. 

Marchez! — A race for survival When Rhodes Delaney challenged James Alderston Whitbury III to a grudge match she chose the most grueling of all tests — the Iditarod: a lethal dogsled race across the perilous wastelands of barren Alaska. Through life-sapping storms, howling blizzards, and deadly sub-zero temperatures, the racers must struggle over treacherous mountain passes where the sun’s rays never reach, cross frozen rivers risking the icy torrents below, and pass enraged bull moose, ravenous bears — and the world’s largest, hungriest wolf pack. In Iditarod, André Jute puts the reader’s feet on the ice and on the runners for twelve hundred hazardous miles of the last great race across the last dangerous frontier as the exhausted bodies and hallucinating minds of the contestants battle towards the moment of truth — when Man and Nature exact the ultimate reckoning from each other. Iditarod is at once a love story, a great adventure, and a brilliant word portrait of the world’s most spectacular and least-known land. First published in 1990, Iditarod is fully revised for this 21st anniversary edition by CoolMain Press. Now with a superb map of the race. Plus a value-added website for readers to share in the excitement of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

Winner of the 2011 Newbery Award.The movement of the train rocked me like a lullaby. I closed my eyes to the dusty countryside and imagined the sign I’d seen only in Gideon’s stories: Manifest—A Town with a rich past and a bright future. Abilene Tucker feels abandoned. Her father has put her on a train, sending her off to live with an old friend for the summer while he works a railroad job. Armed only with a few possessions and her list of universals, Abilene jumps off the train in Manifest, Kansas, aiming to learn about the boy her father once was.Having heard stories about Manifest, Abilene is disappointed to find that it’s just a dried-up, worn-out old town. But her disappointment quickly turns to excitement when she discovers a hidden cigar box full of mementos, including some old letters that mention a spy known as the Rattler. These mysterious letters send Abilene and her new friends, Lettie and Ruthanne, on an honest-to-goodness spy hunt, even though they are warned to “Leave Well Enough Alone.”Abilene throws all caution aside when she heads down the mysterious Path to Perdition to pay a debt to the reclusive Miss Sadie, a diviner who only tells stories from the past. It seems that Manifest’s history is full of colorful and shadowy characters—and long-held secrets. The more Abilene hears, the more determined she is to learn just what role her father played in that history. And as Manifest’s secrets are laid bare one by one, Abilene begins to weave her own story into the fabric of the town. Powerful in its simplicity and rich in historical detail, Clare Vanderpool’s debut is a gripping story of loss and redemption.From the Hardcover edition.

Hood has picked the perfectly wrong time to return to Iron Gate. The town, plagued by the attacks of a dangerous mountain lion, is on edge. Worse yet, a mysterious stranger confronts a gang of outlaws including Emmett Stone, the man who murdered Hood s father four years ago. The year is 1888, and rejected by those who call him only 'Half-Breed,' Hood must figure out where his allegiances lie. What does it mean to be both white and Cherokee? How can he balance the urge to avenge his father's death with the wisdom passed down from his grandfather, Chief Namar? Hood was driven out of town four years ago, but this time, he s resolved to stay, and, if necessary, fight to reclaim his family s homestead. The deck is stacked against him, but he finds an unlikely friend in Ruben Fudd, a fellow woodsman and tough rodeo competitor. Hood and Fudd should fear for their lives, but they are determined to stop at nothing until justice is served and the safety of Iron Gate is restored.