Akron Public Library

In this tongue-in-cheek take on classic themes in children's literature, the four Willoughby children set about to become "deserving orphans" after their neglectful parents embark on a treacherous around-the-world adventure, leaving them in the care of an odious nanny.

An eleven-year-old foster child tries to cope with her longings and fears as she schemes against everyone who tries to be friendly. At eleven, Gilly is nobody's real kid. If only she could find her beautiful mother, Courtney, and live with her instead of in the ugly foster home where she has just been placed! How could she, the great Gilly Hopkins, known throughout the county for her brilliance and unmanageability, be expected to tolerate Maime Trotter,...

Since her mother died when she was born Sara and her father became very close. Sara has to go away to an all girl boarding school in Britian, because her father has to fight in the war. One day a messenger comes and tells her that her father is dead. Since Sara will lose all the money her father has she is forced to be a maid with the other maid who is black named Becky just so she can have a place to live. She finds out that her father is not dead,...

The Baudelaire orphans disguise themselves as employees of the Hotel Denoument and find themselves pursued by the evil Count Olaf and by others.

In the perilous Mortmain Mountains, Klaus and Violet Baudelaire meet another well-read person, who helps them try to rescue Sunny from the villainous Count Olaf and his henchmen as they all near "the last safe place."

Marly had been waiting a long time for this special momwnt. She sat alone in the car and stared at the lonely countryside and the small dilapidated house. It had to be the right place. All outdoors. With miracles. Not crowded and people being cross and mean. Daddy not tired all the time. Mothernot worried. She whispered, "Please let there be miracles."

Separated from her best friends, Raymie and Beverly, twelve-year-old Louisiana struggles to oppose the winds of fate (and her eccentric grandmother) and find a way home. When Louisiana Elefante's granny wakes her up in the middle of the night to tell her that the day of reckoning has arrived and they have to leave home immediately, Louisiana figures that it is only a matter of time before Granny changes her mind and they come back home. After all,...

Ten-year-old Ada has never left her family's one-room apartment. Her bitter mother is too humiliated by Ada's twisted foot to let her outside. But when her little brother, Jamie is going to be shipped out of London to escape World War II, Ada doesn't waste a minute: she sneaks out to join him. So begins a new adventure for Ada, and for Susan Smith, the woman who is forced to take in two kids. As Ada teaches herself to ride a pony, learns to read,...

Lost at sea, the Baudelaire orphans, along with the evil Count Olaf, wash up on the shore of an island populated by an oddly placid group of inhabitants, and they try to decide whether or not they are truly safe.

One warm night four children stood in front of a bakery. No one knew them. No one knew where they had come from. Henry, Jessie, Violet and Benny are orphans.They discover an old red boxcar that provides them shelter from the storm.