Full AspenCat Catalog

Just before Christmas, when Frances sees a sad-eyed organ grinder and his monkey performing near her apartment, she cannot stop thinking about them, wondering where they go at night, and wishing she could do something to help.

Newbery Honor winner Joan Bauer's new novel will touch your heartWhen twelve-year-old Sugar's grandfather dies and her gambling father takes off yet again, Sugar and her mother lose their home in Missouri. They head to Chicago for a fresh start, only to discover that fresh starts aren't so easy to come by for the homeless. Nevertheless, Sugar's mother has taught her to be grateful no matter what, so Sugar does her best. With the help of a rescue dog,...

As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnate is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.

Since his mother's death, Jayson, twelve, has focused on basketball and surviving but he is found out and placed with an affluent foster family of a different race, and must learn to accept many changes, including facing his former teammates in a championship game.

"A story of a citywide scavenger hunt and a girl who learns that family--and weirdness--is relative."--publisher

When authorities threaten to take Sophie, twelve, from Charles who has been her guardian since she was one and both survived a shipwreck, the pair goes to Paris to try to find Sophie's mother, and they are aided by Matteo and his band of "rooftoppers."

After running away from her fifth foster home, Holly, a twelve-year-old orphan, travels across the country, keeping a journal of her experiences and struggle to survive.

With the rent overdue and her bipolar mother missing, seventeen-year-old Adele is forced out of her home and although she tries to maintain the pretense of normality, things rapidly fall apart.

A novel based on the life of Jim Jarvis, a young orphan who escapes the workhouse in London in the 1860s and survives brutal treatment and desparate circumstances until he is taken by Dr. Barnardo, founder of a school for the city's "ragged" children.

Teenaged Raspberry Hill tries to sort out her confused feelings of disgust, shame, and love for her homeless, drug addicted father and worries that she may have inherited his lying and stealing ways.