Avi

City of Orphans

Published 2011-09-06 · 350 pages

The streets of 1893 New York are full of life: crowded, filthy, dangerous. If you are a newsboy like thirteen-year-old Maks Geless, you need to watch out for Bruno, leader of the Plug Ugly Gang whose shadowy, sinister boss is plotting to take control of all the newsies on the lower East Side. With Bruno's boys in fierce pursuit, Maks discovers Willa, a strange girl who lives alone in an alley. It is she, stick in hand, who fights off the Plug Uglies -- but further dangers await.

Crispin: The Cross of Lead

(From Goodreads): 'Asta's Son' is all he's ever been called. The lack of a name is appropriate, because he and his mother are but poor peasants in 14th century medieval England. But this thirteen year old boy who thought he had little to lose soon finds himself with even less---no home, no family, or possessions. Accused of a crime he did not commit, he may be killed on sight, by anyone. If he wishes to remain alive, he must flee his tiny village. All the boy takes with him is a newly revealed name--Crispin--and his mother's cross of lead.

Ereth's Birthday

192 pages

Feeling neglected on his birthday, Ereth, the cantankerous old porcupine, sets out looking for his favorite treat and instead finds himself acting as "mother" to three young fox kits.

Poppy

160 pages

Poppy is a children's novel written by Avi and illustrated by Brian Floca. The novel was first published by Orchard Books in 1995. Poppy is the first-published of Avi's Tales From Dimwood Forest series. Within the narrative sequence of the series, it is the third book. In 1996, Poppy received the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for fiction.

Poppy and Rye

197 pages

When their home next to a brook is destroyed by beavers, a large family of golden mice is aided by Poppy the deer mouse and her grumpy porcupine friend, who in the process forges a relationship with the son he had abandoned.

Something Upstairs

128 pages

When he moves from Los Angeles to Providence, Rhode Island, Kenny discovers that his new house is haunted by the spirit of a black slave boy who asks Kenny to return with him to the early nineteenth century and prevent his murder by slave traders.

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle

234 pages

As the only passenger, and the only female, on a transatlantic voyage in 1832, thirteen-year-old Charlotte finds herself caught between a murderous captain and a mutinous crew.