Would You

Planet Tad

Five Things They Never Told Me

Lucky Strikes

Papa

Poor Badger

The Other Ones

Shimmy

In search of the perfect story to put a human face on a tragedy for his newspaper, my dad will fly into the eye of the storm. And now he’s heading to Ukraine, straight into the aftermath of a deadly earthquake. I don’t want him to leave. I don’t want to spend the week alone in a silent house with my mother, whose classically Russian reserve has built a wall between us that neither of us knows how to tear down. But I don’t tell him this. I don’t say stay.

I think I’m holding it together okay—until the FBI comes knocking on our door. Now it’s all I can do to fight off the horrifying images in my head. The quake has left so many orphans and widows, but Mom and I refuse to be counted among them. Whatever it takes to get Dad back, I’ll do it. Even if it means breaking a promise…or the law.

Discover Your Child's Next Read

Would You

Marthe Jocelyn, 2008

Planet Tad

Tim Carvell, 2012

Five Things They Never Told Me

Rebecca Westcott, 2015

Lucky Strikes

Louis Bayard, 2016

Papa

Donna Rossi, 2011

Poor Badger

K.M. Peyton, 1991

The Other Ones

Jean Thesman, 1999

Shimmy

Anne Cateaux, 2021