Orphan History

This historical novella is set in the famed Greek village of Kalavryta, the site of one of the worst massacres in the history of World War II. Panagiotis and Vasiliki Zirogiannis are met with the realities of Italian and, later, Nazi occupation of their beloved little village in the Greek countryside.

When the furniture removers empty the family tenement as payment for back rent, 10-year-old Kathleen Flannigan fears that her family will soon be homeless and hungry. Kathleen vows to save her family from ruin, even though her plan means personal sacrifice. Will the orphan train going to Michigan be the answer to Kathleen's vision of a better life for herself and her family?

One day, villagers from Lacaune, in the mountains of southern France, returned from the woods with a startling story. They’d glimpsed a naked boy digging in the leaves. A year later - in 1798 - the strange, scarred boy appeared again, and this time woodsmen captured him and marched him down the mountain to the village square, where everyone crowded around to take in the spectacle. And so began the curious public life of the boy known as the Savage of Aveyron, whose journey took him all the way to Paris.

In this colonial adventure tale, set on the Pennsylvania-New Jersey border in 1768, Everett Shinn is enlisted in a search for two runaway indentured servants. Eager for adventure and to become a hero by capturing the runaways himself, 12-year-old Peter York, Shinn’s adopted son, volunteers to join the search. Peter assumes that the runaways are swarthy ruffians. When he discovers, however, that they are mistreated children seeking freedom in Pennsylvania, Peter’s purpose turns from capturing them to helping them escape. Will Shinn, a devout Quaker of few words, foil Peter’s plans, or will the young man receive help from an unexpected source?