When eight-year-old Kevin is inadvertently left at home when his family leaves for Paris, he does his best to defend the house against burglars.

Walter has had a hard life for a 13-year old. His no good floozy of a mother tends to get together with many equally despicable men. Before going on yet another husband-hunting trip, she drops Walter off at the house of his great-uncles Hub and Garth. In their youth, they would disappear for quite a while. The two are rumored to have acquired a great fortune, which Walter's mother hopes to get her hands on if he can ingratiate himself enough to the...

In this delightful, funny, and moving first novel, a librarian and a young boy obsessed with reading take to the road.
Lucy Hull, a young children's librarian in Hannibal, Missouri, finds herself both a kidnapper and kidnapped when her favorite patron, ten- year-old Ian Drake, runs away from home. The precocious Ian is addicted to reading, but needs Lucy's help to smuggle books past his overbearing mother, who has enrolled Ian in weekly...