"Beverly put her foot down on the gas. They went faster still. This was what Beverly wanted -- what she always wanted. To get away. To get away as fast as she could. To stay away. Beverly Tapinski has run away from home plenty of times, but that was when she was just a kid. By now, she figures, it's not running away. It's leaving. Determined to make it on her own, Beverly finds a job and a place to live and tries to forget about her dog, Buddy, now...

Since the publication of My Brilliant Friend, the first of the Neapolitan novels, Elena Ferrante's fame as one of our most compelling, insightful, and stylish contemporary authors has grown enormously. She has gained admirers among authors--Jhumpa Lahiri, Elizabeth Strout, Claire Messud, to name a few--and critics--James Wood, John Freeman, Eugenia Williamson, for example. But her most resounding success has undoubtedly been with readers, who have...

Innovative and deeply poetic, The Waves is often regarded as Virginia Woolf's masterpiece. It begins with six children--three boys and three girls--playing in a garden by the sea, and follows their lives as they grow up, experience friendship and love, and grapple with the death of their beloved friend Percival. Instead of describing their outward expressions of grief, Woolf draws her characters from the inside, revealing their inner lives: their...

For the well-meaning Henry Huggins, nothing ever works out quite as planned including getting the bike of his dreams. Luckily his pal Beezus Quimby is there to help! Henry's attempts at raising money for his bike fund keep falling flat. Selling bubble gum on the playground gets him in trouble with his teacher, and then Ribsy's nose for mischief almost ruins Henry s paper route. Even pesky little Ramona Quimby manages to get in the way of Henry's chance...

Judy Moody's new friendship with Amy Namey causes problems with her old friends and the school project they are working on together.

In winning a medal she is no longer there to receive, a tight-lipped little Polish girl teaches her classmates a lesson. Includes a note from the author's daughter, Helena Estes.

Here is the dazzling saga of two women, the brilliant, bookish Elena and the fiery uncontainable Lila. In this book, both are adults; life's great discoveries have been made, its vagaries and losses have been suffered. Through it all, the women's friendship, examined in its every detail over the course of four books, remains the gravitational center of their lives. Both women once fought to escape the neighborhood in which they grew up—a prison...

The second book, following last year's My Brilliant Friend, featuring the two friends Lila and Elena. The two protagonists are now in their twenties. Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila. Meanwhile, Elena continues her journey of self-discovery. The two young women share a complex and evolving bond that brings them close at times, and drives them apart at others. Each vacillates between hurtful disregard and profound love for the other. With this...

The part of third grade Ellen Tebbits likes most is having Austine Allen for her best friend.

Second-graders Ivy and Bean set out to expel the ghost who is living in the girls' bathroom at their school.