Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Maryland

A moving novel about love, loss, and an extraordinary lifelong passion for golf, by the acclaimed author of The Cliff Walk and Fallen Angel. Ross Lansdale never knew his mother and father and grew up at St. Luke's Orphanage for Boys in the 1950s. The one person who took an interest in him was Father Martin, a Benedictine monk who understood the loneliness of an orphan’s life. He instilled in Ross an enduring love of two solitary, reliable pursuits: golf and books. Over the years, and through the loss of his beloved mentor, Ross comes to rely on these trustworthy tools, sure that they will never abandon him. As an adult and a college professor of literature, Ross encounters two people who will challenge and forever change his life: Julia, the student who opens his heart only to make him feel more vulnerable than ever, and Johnny Durocher, a spit-fire new professor–and terrifically talented golfer–who becomes Ross’s first true friend. Durocher’s one serious dream is to play the amateur tournament on the Old Course at Saint Andrews, but when an unforeseen tragedy keeps Johnny from playing, Ross must make the boldest decision of his life. As he travels to Scotland to confront his failures and fears, Ross embraces his wonder of the ancient game and plays a round of golf in honor of his friend, and the boy he used to be. With characteristic poignancy and style that have earned Don J. Snyder critical acclaim for his novels and screenplays, WINTER DREAMS is a remarkable new work filled with compassion, heartache, and the grace that comes from the triumph of personal courage.

Winter Dreams

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Lois Lowry

From the New York Times bestselling and two-time Newbery Medal-winning author of The Giver and Number the Stars comes a delightfully tongue-in-cheek story about parents trying to get rid of their four children and the children who are all too happy to lose their beastly parents and be on their own.

The Willoughby children—Timothy, twins Barnaby A and Barnaby B, and their sister Jane—are fond all old-fashioned things, but especially old-fashioned adventures. What they aren't fond of, however, are their parents. Truth be told, their parents aren't the fondest of them, either, and they're concocting an evil plan to get rid of their children once and for all!

Both parents and children have plenty of dastardly ideas and tricks up their sleeves. The only thing they don't have is any idea of what lies between them and a happily-ever-after.

Complete with a cheeky glossary and bibliography, this hilarious and wonderfully old-fashioned parody pays playful homage to classic works of children’s literature like Mary Poppins and A Christmas Carol. Now a Netflix animated film, starring Ricky Gervais, Maya Rudolph, Terry Crews, Martin Short, Jane Krakowski, Will Forte, Alessia Cara, and Séan Cullen!



Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Texas

In this tongue-in-cheek take on classic themes in children's literature, the four Willoughby children set about 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.

The Willoughbys

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Kaye Gibbons

Winner of the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and letters.

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

A Novel

After the death of her mother, an eleven-year-old girl finds that life with her father is too dangerous and tries to find a new home.

Ellen Foster

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#hardcover #exlibrary #livingbook #juvenilefiction #broadway #classic #vintage #orphan #musical #children 

Oregon

Unexpected sources help a spunky orphan in the search for her parents who have been missing since 1922.

Annie: An Old-Fashioned Story 

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Chi Fa Lu

Becky White

Arkansas

Memoirs of a Chinese Orphan

When Lu Chi Fa's parents died in 1944, he was only three years old. The timing of the tragedy could not have been worse-- it was a time of political turmoil and severe hardship in China. Few people willingly took in orphans, and Chi Fa's extended family was no exception. The young boy was shuffled from one house to another as his relatives turned him away, one by one. Even his loving sister was forbidden by her husband to take him under her roof. Chi fa was always hungry, often cold, and frequently beaten. But through all his struggles, he held onto his sister's hopeful words: "You are lucky, Chi Fa. Good fortune will find you." This stirring memoir of a painful childhood tells a story of resilience and courage, and attests to the power of even small acts of kindness.

Double Luck

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Gennifer Choldenko

An engaging adventure from a Newbery Honor-winning storyteller for readers who love the circus, and anyone who has dreamed of finding the perfect home.

Four orphans have escaped from the Home for Friendless Children. One is Lucy, who used to talk and sing. No one knows why she doesn't speak anymore; silence is her protection.

The orphans find work and new friends at a traveling circus. Lucy loves caring for the elephants, but she must be able to speak to them, and to warn others of danger. If Lucy doesn't find her voice, she'll be left behind when the circus goes on the rails. Meanwhile, people are searching for Lucy, and her puzzling past is about to catch up with her.

This lively, heartwarming novel by the award-winning author of the Tales from Alcatraz series is full of marvels and surprises.

Orphan Eleven

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#hardcover #youngadult #ya #orphan #poverty #fiction 

New York

The storm skipped round, digging out its swath like skipping rocks through town, mashing a house here to matchsticks, leaving one next door to stand untouched. Our farm was spared, but that don't mean we were the lucky ones.

For twelve-year-old Mony (short for Ramona Louise), a small town in Georgia and the stories her pa tells are all she knows of life. Her family is poor, but they work hard to make ends meet. And Mony has Georgie, her beloved older sister and very best friend.

Then, in horrifying succession, one disaster after another strikes and Mony, Georgie, and their baby sister are suddenly on their own. They must learn to survive, just the three of them. But Mony alone must cope with the one secret she fears will destroy them as a family.

Told in a funny, sensitive, and heartbreakingly original voice, the story of Mony and her sister is the story of family, and the unbreakable ties of love, devotion, and family history.

Say You Are My Sister

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Delaware

Beholding Bee

Minnesota

Orphan Train Girl

Award-winning author Sid Fleischman blends the broadly comic with the deeply compassionate in this memorable novel, winner of the Newbery Medal. 

A Prince and a Pauper . . . Prince Brat and his whipping boy inadvertently trade places after becoming involved with dangerous outlaws. The two boys have nothing in common and even less reason to like each other. But when they find themselves taken hostage after running away, they are left with no choice but to trust each other. "A rollicking tale of adventure and mistaken identity . . . . Robust scenes and characters are vividly evoked."—Kirkus Reviews

This briskly told tale of high adventure, taut with suspense and rich with colorful characters, was named an ALA Notable Book. Sid Fleischman's celebrated novel features brief, action-packed chapters and includes black-and-white illustrations by Caldecott Honor artist Peter Sís. "An 18th century tale about the escapades of a resourceful orphan and a spoiled young prince. . . . Full of adventure, suspense, humor, and lively characters."—The New York Times



The Whipping Boy

Andrea White

In 2083, orphan Shama Katooee, who has just stolen an expensive pet bird, is mysteriously selected to attend the elite Chronos Academy to be trained in the practice of TimeWatch, although she has no idea how or why she has been given this honor.

Windows on the World

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Kim Wilkins

In 1799, having stowed away on her father's ship sailing from Dartmouth, England, to Ceylon in search of her long-lost mother, seventeen-year-old Constance Blackchurch falls in love with a nineteen-year old French orphan they rescue from a nefarious pearl dealer.

Unclaimed Heart

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California

So Many Dads, but Not Many Fathers

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#tourettesyndrome #comingofage #illness #kentucky #orphan #womanhood #appalachia #oprahsbookclub   A New York Times notable book.


A New York Times Notable Book and the March 2001 selection of Oprah's Book Club® ! Icy Sparks is the sad, funny and transcendent tale of a young girl growing up in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky during the 1950’s. Gwyn Hyman Rubio’s beautifully written first novel revolves around Icy Sparks, an unforgettable heroine in the tradition of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird or Will Treed in Cold Sassy Tree. At the age of ten, Icy, a bright, curious child orphaned as a baby but raised by adoring grandparents, begins to have strange experiences. Try as she might, her "secrets"—verbal croaks, groans, and physical spasms—keep afflicting her. As an adult, she will find out she has Tourette’s Syndrome, a rare neurological disorder, but for years her behavior is the source of mystery, confusion, and deep humiliation. Narrated by a grown up Icy, the book chronicles a difficult, but ultimately hilarious and heartwarming journey, from her first spasms to her self-acceptance as a young woman. Curious about life beyond the hills, talented, and energetic, Icy learns to cut through all barriers—physical, mental, and spiritual—in order to find community and acceptance. Along her journey, Icy faces the jeers of her classmates as well as the malevolence of her often-ignorant teachers—including Mrs. Stilton, one of the most evil fourth grade teachers ever created by a writer. Called willful by her teachers and "Frog Child" by her schoolmates, she is exiled from the schoolroom and sent to a children’s asylum where it is hoped that the roots of her mysterious behavior can be discovered. Here Icy learns about difference—her own and those who are even more scarred than she. Yet, it isn’t until Icy returns home that she really begins to flower, especially through her friendship with the eccentric and obese Miss Emily, who knows first-hand how it feels to be an outcast in this tightly knit Appalachian community. Under Miss Emily’s tutelage, Icy learns about life’s struggles and rewards, survives her first comical and heartbreaking misadventure with romance, discovers the healing power of her voice when she sings, and ultimately—takes her first steps back into the world. Gwyn Hyman Rubio’s Icy Sparks is a fresh, original, and completely redeeming novel about learning to overcome others’ ignorance and celebrate the differences that make each of us unique.

Icy Sparks

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Leila Meacham

Missouri

Tumbleweeds

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Gwyn Hyman Rubio

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Ohio

#fiction #paperback #netflix #drama #chess #bestseller #orphan #adaptation #movie

Michigan

Engaging and fast-paced, this gripping coming-of-age novel of chess, feminism, and addiction speeds to a conclusion as elegant and satisfying as a mate in four. Now an acclaimed Netflix series. Eight year-old orphan Beth Harmon is quiet, sullen, and by all appearances unremarkable. That is, until she plays her first game of chess. Her senses grow sharper, her thinking clearer, and for the first time in her life she feels herself fully in control. By the age of sixteen, she's competing for the U.S. Open championship. But as Beth hones her skills on the professional circuit, the stakes get higher, her isolation grows more frightening, and the thought of escape becomes all the more tempting.

The Queen's Gambit (Television Tie-In)

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Jess Kidd

Illinois

""A highly unusual tale set in a highly unusual Irish village full of dark secrets

Himself

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#paperback #fiction #tourettesyndrome #comingofage #illness #kentucky #orphan #womanhood 

Robert Muchamore

Every CHERUB agent comes from somewhere. Dante Scott still has nightmares about the death of his family, brutally murdered by a biker gang. Dante is given the chance to become a member of CHERUB, a trained professional with one essential advantage: adults never suspect that children are spying on them. But when Dante joins James and Lauren Adams on a mission to infiltrate Brigands Motorcycle Club, he's ready to use everything he's learned to get revenge on the people who killed his family!

Brigands M. C.

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#paperback #fiction #historicalfiction #newyorkcity #coneyisland #sideshows #orphan #orphanfiction #asylum #lowereastside 

New Jersey

A ravishing first novel, set in vibrant, tumultuous turn-of-the-century New York City, where the lives of four outsiders become entwined, bringing irrevocable change to them all. New York, 1895. Sylvan Threadgill, a night soiler cleaning out the privies behind the tenement houses, finds an abandoned newborn baby in the muck. An orphan himself, Sylvan rescues the child, determined to find where she belongs. Odile Church and her beautiful sister, Belle, were raised amid the applause and magical pageantry of The Church of Marvels, their mother’s spectacular Coney Island sideshow. But the Church has burnt to the ground, their mother dead in its ashes. Now Belle, the family’s star, has vanished into the bowels of Manhattan, leaving Odile alone and desperate to find her. A young woman named Alphie awakens to find herself trapped across the river in Blackwell’s Lunatic Asylum—sure that her imprisonment is a ruse by her husband’s vile, overbearing mother. On the ward she meets another young woman of ethereal beauty who does not speak, a girl with an extraordinary talent that might save them both. As these strangers’ lives become increasingly connected, their stories and secrets unfold. Moving from the Coney Island seashore to the tenement-studded streets of the Lower East Side, a spectacular human circus to a brutal, terrifying asylum, Church of Marvels takes readers back to turn-of-the-century New York—a city of hardship and dreams, love and loneliness, hope and danger. In magnetic, luminous prose, Leslie Parry offers a richly atmospheric vision of the past in a narrative of astonishing beauty, full of wondrous enchantments, a marvelous debut that will leave readers breathless.

Church of Marvels

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Frances Burnett

Some aging of covers - library stamp on inside page

The Story of Sara Crewe

Sara Crewe's privileged status at her boarding school ends when her father dies. Left penniless, Sara retains her pluck and optimism, which attract the notice of a mysterious benefactor.

A Little Princess

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I have other books available by this author 

A critically acclaimed tearjerker from a master storyteller: On one side of the border is brutality and heartache; on the other side--a new life.14yo Manny is an orphan in Juarez, Mexico. He competes with his bigger, meaner rivals for the coins American tourists throw off the bridge between Texas and his town. Across that heavily guarded bridge await a different world and a better existence.On the night when Manny dares the crossing--through the muddy shallows of the Rio Grande, past the searchlights and the border patrol--the young man encounters an old stranger who could prove to be an ally or an enemy. Manny can't tell for certain. But if he is to achieve his dream, then he must be willing to risk everything--even his life.

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Don J. Snyder

Winter Dreams

Lois Lowry

The Willoughbys

Kaye Gibbons

Ellen Foster

Thomas Meehan

Annie: An Old-Fashioned Story

Chi Fa Lu; Becky White

Double Luck

Gennifer Choldenko

Orphan Eleven

Laurel Stowe Brady

Say You Are My Sister

Kimberly Newton Fusco

Beholding Bee

Christina Baker Kline

Orphan Train Girl

Sid Fleischman

The Whipping Boy

Andrea White

Windows on the World

Kim Wilkins

Unclaimed Heart

Yan Venter

So Many Dads, but Not Many Fathers

Gwyn Hyman Rubio

Icy Sparks

Leila Meacham

Tumbleweeds

Gwyn Hyman Rubio

Icy Sparks

Walter Tevis

The Queen's Gambit (Television Tie-In)

Jess Kidd

Himself

Gwyn Hyman Rubio

Icy Sparks

Robert Muchamore

Brigands M. C.

Leslie Parry

Church of Marvels

Frances Burnett

A Little Princess

Gary Paulsen

The Crossing

Jess Kidd

Himself