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A swarthy villain, nearly seven foot tall and presumed hanged, seems to wake from the dead in the presence of young Bartholomew Dorking. Having outwitted the noose, Black Jack enlists the unwilling boy to be his companion. Together they weave their way through the seamiest parts of old London, a traveling circus, and a private madhouse where forgotten lunatics are chained in empty rooms, and from which Bartholomew rescues Belle, a girl who may not be mad at all.

"The wild folk in Pleasant Valley were whispering strange stories to one another. If the stories were true, they were most amazing. And if they were merely made up to cause talk, certainly they succeeded.
Perhaps if somebody less tricky than Peter Mink and Tommy Fox had started these odd tales, the rest of the wild folk might have been quicker to believe them."

When Buster Bear comes to live in the Green Forest, the amiable bully stirs up quite a commotion, for bears haven't lived in the forest for years. And sure enough, before long Buster has a series of run-ins with Little Joe Otter, Chatterer the Red Squirrel, Farmer Brown's Boy, and even a stubborn metal pail!

A naughty little boy, sent to bed without his supper, sails to the land of the wild things where he becomes their king.

After their trailer home and all their belongings are burned, twelve-year-old Ember and her Wiccan family move to a lakeside campground where Ember's anguish over losing her dog, as well as her friendship with the boy she fears started the fire, stops her from making new friends and moving on.

The narrator describes discovering how Ralph the dog can talk, appropriately saying words such as "roof," "rough," "bark," and "wolf."

A.J. and his friends in the second grade learn that art can be made out of anything, even garbage.

Teens Octavia and Tali learn about strength, independence, and courage when they are forced to take a car trip with their grandmother, who tells about growing up Black in 1940s Alabama and serving in Europe during World War II as a member of the Women's Army Corps.

Dark times have fallen on McQuarrie Middle School. Dwight is back--and not a moment too soon--as Kellen, Sara, and the gang face a new Menace: the FunTime Educational Program. FunTime is supposed to raise students' standardized test scores. Instead, it's driving everyone crazy. The students turn to Origami Yoda for help.

Resolving to earn so much money that his mother will no longer stress out over the bills, eleven-year-old Timmy Failure launches a detective business with a lazy polar bear partner named Total but finds their enterprise "Total Failure, Inc." challenged by a college-bound spy and a four-foot-tall girl whom Timmy refuses to acknowledge.