Family Life Science

Floralie Laurel, freshly expelled from Mrs. Coffrey's School for Young Girls, works as a flower seller in an English village with her guardian brother, Tom, miles and miles away from their real home in France. Tom and Floralie are drowning in debt, but fortunately, Grandmama arrives to save them. Unfortunately, Grandmama's idea of "saving" means sending Floralie to the Adelaide Laurel Orphanage for Unfortunate Children and shaping her into a proper lady - i.e., ridding her of imagination, daydreams, paintings, and poetry.

Twins Virginia and Tommy Matthews have been on their own since they were orphaned at the age of five, surviving a merciless foster care system by relying on each other. Twelve years later, the world begins to collapse around them as a deadly contagion steadily wipes out entire populations and a devastating world war rages on for the cure. When Tommy is drafted for the war, the twins are faced with a choice: stay and accept their fate of almost certain death or run. Virginia and Tommy flee into the dark night.

Jack, his genius siblings Ava and Matt, and inventor Dr. Hank Witherspoon travel to the Hawaiian island home of Ashley Hawking, a technology billionaire. Hawking and engineer Rosa Morris have built a revolutionary electricity plant that harvests energy from the deep ocean, but someone has been sabotaging the project. In their search for the culprit, Jack and crew navigate an unusual world of characters and suspects, including Hawking and her obnoxiously intelligent son.

Amid a war torn land, hidden deep within an enchanted forest, hides an orphanage where miracles abound. It s a magical place built by a resolute king who is determined to defeat an evil sorcerer waging bitter war against his people. Victory just might take a miracle, and so the orphanage may very well hide the key to winning the war. A young girl named Kelsey also desperately needs a miracle. She embarks on a quest to find the mysterious and hidden orphanage.

Devin doesn’t remember life before the world got hot; he has grown up farming the scorched earth with his grandfather in their remote valley. When his grandfather dies, Devin heads for the city. Once there, among the stark glass buildings, he finds scores of children, just like him, living alone on the streets. They tell him rumors of a place for abandoned children, with unlimited food and toys and the hope of finding a new family. But only the luckiest get there. An act of kindness earns Devin an invitation to the home, but it’s soon clear that it’s no paradise....

When Olivia Williams and her two younger brothers awake from a car crash, they're positive their world has changed. The talking horse is a big clue. And he has a lot to say. According to Thunder, fairies, magic, and good ol' St. Nick are all for real - on some level. Which would be incredibly awesome, but there's a problem: A rift has formed between the layers of existence, and evil Sliders are taking advantage of it - bringing violence, fear, and hatred with them.

If Ruby Wright could have her way, her dad would never have met and married her stepmother Willow, her best friend George would be more than a friend, and her mom would still be alive. Ruby knows wishes can't come true; some things just can't be undone. Then she discovers a tree in the middle of an Ohio cornfield with a wormhole to nine alternative realities. Suddenly, Ruby can access completely different realities, each containing variations of her "life" if things had gone differently at key moments.

Pi in the Sky stars Joss, the seventh son of the Supreme Overlord of the Universe, whose job is to deliver magical pies - ones that happen to hold the secrets of the cosmos. But when planet Earth suddenly disappears, Joss must figure out a way to bring it back - even if it means enlisting the help of an outspoken Earth girl named Annika.

When a ghostly figure is sighted in the murky tunnels beneath Edinburgh, Zinnie and her sisters suddenly find their underground home filled with curious visitors. Among them is the owner of a new museum - the House of Wonders - who seems to know more about the ‘ghost’ than he should.

Nicolaas Storm fährt mit seinem Vater Willem durch ein vollkommen verändertes Südafrika. Nach einem Fieber, das weltweit fünfundneunzig Prozent der Menschen getötet hat, versuchen die beiden, einen sicheren Platz zum Leben zu finden. Das Land ist in einem Zustand der Gesetzlosigkeit. Gangs ziehen schwerbewaffnet umher, wilde Tiere bedrohen die Menschen. Schließlich aber finden Vater und Sohn einen Platz für eine Siedlung.

In a future Australia ravaged by climate change, twins Ashleigh and Aiden Delatour have always promised to protect and be there for each other, no matter what. Their privileged upbringing and loving, wealthy parents leave them with little to worry about. But when Aiden is seriously injured during a school trip, the twins' entire world begins to unravel. Back home from the hospital, something about Aiden seems different and Ashleigh's quest to find out why will uncover dark truths about the world they thought they knew.

Women in today's advanced capitalist societies are encouraged to "lean in." The media and government champion women's empowerment. In a cultural climate where women can seemingly have it all, why do so many successful professional women - lawyers, financial managers, teachers, engineers, and others - give up their careers after having children and become stay-at-home mothers? How do they feel about their decision and what do their stories tell us about contemporary society?

On the morning of Gail's birthday, she watches her shadow slip under the kitchen door. She's not surprised it decided to leave. Her dad has gone for good. Her big sister, Kay, once Gail's best friend, has disappeared into sadness - and now her shadow has left, too. Determined to make things right, Gail chases after the shadows. But her adventures take her to unexpected places, and she soon discovers that where there are shadows, there's darkness, and that she's not the only one looking for something missing....

Identical twins Cassie and Caitlyn Waters may be able to see into the future, but with a teacher who suspects they have powers waiting to catch them midvision and the grandmother they just met in town to teach them how to better control what they foresee, the last thing they need is more trouble. Luckily, a class-wide game of Truth or Dare has begun and the twins are having fun competing. When a vision shows the girls' friend getting hurt, Cassie and Caitlyn know that they're the only ones who can prevent it.

Ambert and Calista Knight live in a world where the arts, magic, dreams, and creativity are banned. They're the son and daughter of The Regime's Head of Regulation Enforcement and they are no stranger to the rules that surround them. An asthmatic girl with a curious mind, Calista braces herself for a new year at Fortress Military Academy. Facing challenging academics and constant bullying, Calista's looking to make new friends and discover more about the arts and magic that her county has banned. No stranger to trouble, Ambert walks a thin line.

Twelve-year-old Bertie Blount is great at causing trouble. When she’s forced to leave behind her dad and friends in North Carolina so her mom can marry the most boring optometrist in the world, Bertie has a chance at a fresh start. But when Bertie arrives in Pennsylvania, she doesn’t just bring trouble; she brings disaster. In a moment of anger, Bertie unwittingly triggers an accident that puts her future stepbrother in a coma.

Vanessa Marshall has spent her life in and out of foster care, with only a vague recollection of the women that left her behind. When she receives a strange letter from her mother three weeks before her 18th birthday, Vanessa knows it’s the only shot she has at finding her real family. The letter instructs her to jump off the Swan Pier into the ocean at midnight under the next full moon. With the steadfast hope that her mother would be waiting for her, Vanessa jumps, only to find that she’s come up for air 70 years in the past.

Sasha has always loved the Cirque, a place filled with sequined costumes, dazzling spotlights, and magnificent tents. But when she starts fifth grade with the Islanders - the ordinary folk from the other side of the Island - for the first time, she’s not so sure she wants to be a Cirque kid. She starts to question her home and her Cirque family. Is the magic real? Are the stories even true? As the bullying by the Island kids gets worse, swirling blue-gray Smoke appears. One night in the big tent, Sasha’s dad performs, twisting his body through the air as the lights dance.

A magical breadbox that delivers whatever you wish for-as long as it fits inside? It's too good to be true! Twelve-year-old Rebecca is struggling with her parents' separation, as well as a sudden move to her Gran's house in another state. For a while, the magic bread box, discovered in the attic, makes life away from home a little easier. Then suddenly it starts to make things much, much more difficult, and Rebecca is forced to decide not just where, but who she really wants to be.

Thirteen-year-old Kyra has grown up in an isolated polygamous community without questioning her father's three wives and her twenty brothers and sisters. Or at least without questioning them much—if you don't count her secret visits to the Mobile Library on Wheels to read forbidden books, or her meetings with the boy she hopes to choose for herself instead of having a man chosen for her. But when the Prophet decrees that Kyra must marry her 60-year-old uncle—who already has six wives—Kyra must make a desperate choice in the face of violence and her own fears of losing her family.