When orphaned Mary Lennox comes to live at her uncle's great house on the Yorkshire moors, she finds it full of secrets. At night, she hears the sound of crying down one of the long corridors. Outside, she meets Dickon, a magical boy who can talk to animals. Then one day, Mary discovers the most mysterious wonder of all -- a secret garden, walled and locked, which has been forgotten for years and years. With the help of two unexpected companions,...

Kidsnatched from her orphanage by a BFG (Big Friendly Giant), who spends his life blowing happy dreams to children, Sophie concocts with him a plan to save the world from nine other man-gobbling cannybull giants.

"A terrifying encounter with an escaped convict in a graveyard on the wild Kent marshes; a summons to meet the bitter, decaying Miss Havisham and her beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella; the sudden generosity of a mysterious benefactor-these form a series of events that change the orphan Pip's life forever, as he eagerly abandons his humble origins to begin a new life as a gentleman. Dickens's haunting novel depicts Pip's education and development...

After the sudden death of their parents, the three Baudelaire children must depend on each other and their wits when it turns out that the distant relative who is appointed their guardian is determined to use any means necessary to get their fortune. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are intelligent children. They are charming, and resourceful, and have pleasant facial features. Unfortunately, they are exceptionally unlucky.

In tracing the parish boy's progress, Dickens did not write a topical satire on the workhouse system and the role of the 1834 New Poor Law in fostering criminality, he created a story about the survival of good, and the exploitation of violence.

After the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of their own.

"A Platt & Munk cricket book"An imaginative, wealthy, good little girl retains her royal composure even when banished to the attic as a charity pupil after her English boarding school mistress hears that her father has died in poverty.

Lame and suddenly orphaned, Kira is mysteriously removed from her squalid village to live in the palatial Council Edifice, where she is expected to use her gifts as a weaver to do the bidding of the all-powerful Guardians.

Falsely accused of theft and murder, an orphaned peasant boy in fourteenth-century England flees his village and meets a larger-than-life juggler who holds a dangerous secret.

The importance of a healthy environment and sound psychology is effectively revealed through the story of how a nervous, overprotected young girl becomes a stable, self-reliant person after she is suddenly transplanted to the simple life on a Vermont farm.