After a merciless winter, spring has sprung in 1880 Stockholm, and the city awaits the arrival of the SS Vega, the first ship to have sailed the Northeast Passage. Life is busy at the orphanage, but twelve-year-old Mika quickly notices that the older orphans are up to something--and it doesn't look good. When Constable Hoff approaches her with information about thefts around the city, Mika becomes even more concerned about what the other kids are...

In all the years that Elinora Gassbeek has been matron of the Little Tulip Orphanage, not once have the Rules for Baby Abandonment been broken--until the autumn of 1880, when five babies are left in outrageous circumstances: one in a tin toolbox, one in a coal bucket, one in a picnic hamper, one in a wheat sack, and finally, one in a coffin-shaped basket ... And although their cruel matron might think they're 'unadoptable,' they know their individuality...

"A shocking expose of the dark, secret history of Catholic orphanages--the violence, abuse, and even murder that took place within their walls-- and a call to hold the powerful to account. More than 5 million Americans passed through orphanages in the 20th century alone. At its peak in the 1930s, the American orphanage system included more than 1,600 institutions, partly supported with public funding but usually run by religious orders, including...

Isabel has devoted her life to working with the children in a Calcutta orphanage. Theresa is the multimillionaire leader of a media company who lives with her artist husband and twin boys in New York. When Isabel hears of a mysterious and generous grant for the financially strained orphanage, she must travel to New York to meet the benefactor, Theresa, in person.

Practically-perfect twelve-year-old Victoria Wright must lie, sneak, and break the rules when her investigation of the disappearance of her best--and only--friend, Lawrence, reveals dark secrets about her town and the orphanage run by the reclusive Mrs. Cavendish.

"Two families, generations apart, are forever changed by a heartbreaking injustice in this poignant novel, inspired by a true story, for readers of Orphan Train and The Nightingale. Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family's Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge--until strangers arrive...

Set at the Vanderbilt's Biltmore estate in 1890s Ashville, North Carolina, this novel finds Tillie Reese torn between her lifelong dream of being a lady's maid and the romantic stirrings of her heart.

"In the fall of 1918, thirteen-year-old German immigrant Pia Lange longs to be far from Philadelphia's overcrowded slums and the anti-immigrant sentiment that compelled her father to enlist in the U.S. Army. But as her city celebrates the end of war, an even more urgent threat arrives: the Spanish flu. Funeral crepe and quarantine signs appear on doors as victims drop dead in the streets and desperate survivors wear white masks to ward off illness....