Marguerite St. Juste was Irish on her mother's side, who was born of the Desmonds of Desmondstown in the County Kerry. Marguerite's father was a French Comte, whose grandfather had been one of the victims of the guillotine. Both her parents are dead and she is being brought up by an aunt and uncle. She wants to find out about the rest of her family and her adventures take her to Ireland and France. - Summary by Michele Eaton

The Story of a Stuffed Elephant is… well, the story of a Stuffed Elephant and the little boy who owns him, and his sister, and all their adventures. A delightful children’s book by the author of The Bobbsey Twins series.

In this third volume of the “Bobbsey Twin Series”, the twins – Nan and Bert and Freddie and Flossie – go with their family to visit relatives at the seashore. Excitement and adventure are sure to abound!

This book follows the adventures of Bunny Brown, a 6-year old lively little boy, and his Sister Sue, a happy 5-year old little girl. You will enjoy learning of their adorable antics and delightful chatter. The Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue series were published by the Stratemeyer Syndicate from 1916-1930. (Introduction by Abigail Rasmussen)

Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue were featured in a series of 20 books for young children published by the Stratemeyer Syndicate from 1916-1930. In this adventure, first published in 1920, Bunny and Sue lose a valuable possession belonging to their mother. They have many adventures and misadventures during a family boating vacation to Christmas Tree Cove. (Introduction by S. McGaughey)

The Candy Rabbit wakes up one morning to find his Destiny has arrived: he is part of a wonderful Easter display at the toy shop in which he lives -- and any moment now the customers will arrive! Follow this sweet chap as he has many little adventures, making new friends and catching up with old friends along the way.

The Bobbsey Twins are back at school after summer vacation, but Danny Rugg, the school bully, is up to mischief again--and this time he's trying to pin it onto Bert. Bert gets accused of freezing a giant snowball to the school steps, and all the evidence seems to point against him. Christmas is coming too, and the Bobbsey Twins are busy planning for their trip to Snow Lodge--where a lost treasure, a restored friendship, and exciting adventures await.

The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale was the first book in a long-running series centering around four girls: Betty Nelson, Mollie Billette, Amy Stonington, and Grace Ford. The girls go on many exciting adventures and solve mysteries. In this book the girls go on a long walking tour and in the process find a hundred dollar bill. Who owns the money and why is such a mysterious note attached? (Introduction by Elizabeth Wilcox)

This is the 11th in the original series of books about the Bobbseys -- two sets of twins in one family, solving mysteries and having adventures. Bert and Nan are 12, Flossie and Freddie are six. There is a father who works, a mother who stays home, a cook, a handyman, and an assortment of animals. - Summary by Nan Dodge

The Bobbsey Twins are the principal characters of what was, for many years, the Stratemeyer Syndicate's longest-running series of children's novels, penned under the pseudonym Laura Lee Hope. The first of 72 books was published in 1904, the last in 1979. The books related the adventures of the children of the middle-class Bobbsey family, which included two sets of fraternal twins: Bert and Nan, who were 12 years old, and Flossie and Freddie, who were six.

The second book in The Bobbsey Twins series finds the two sets of twins experiencing life in the country during the first part of their summer vacation from school. Their stay with their aunt, uncle and cousins on their farm in Meadow Brook is filled with new adventures for the 'city' Bobbseys. (Introduction by Lee Ann Howlett)

"Baseball Joe" Matson's great ambition is to go to boarding school and play on the school team, in this second volume of the Baseball Joe series. Joe is a wide-awake country boy who enjoys playing baseball. We follow his career in the series, and his adventures, as he and hometown chum Tom Davis enroll in Excelsior Hall and join the school nine, are recounted here. When not on the diamond, Joe is saving lives and assisting his father against foes who are once again trying to steal Mr. Matson's machinery patents...

"Baseball Joe" Matson's great ambition is to become a professional baseball pitcher. The Baseball Joe series follows his career as he seeks to attain his goal. In this volume, Joe follows the wishes of his parents and attends college, and seeks to join the Yale University varsity baseball nine. Much to his disappointment, he finds that he cannot immediately do so, due to a Yale rule barring Freshmen from placement on the varsity. We follow his college adventures through his first and second years, with emphasis on his trials in making the team in year two, including the attempts of a rival pitcher to keep him off the team...

"Baseball Joe" Matson's great ambition is to become a professional baseball pitcher. The Baseball Joe series follows his career as he seeks to attain his goal. In this fourth volume, Joe accepts a contract to play baseball professionally, and leaves Yale to play on the Pittston team for the Central League, a "bush league" in the professional baseball hierarchy. Joe's career is helped by "Pop" Dutton, a famous pitcher now down on his luck, and hindered by a rival pitcher on the team, while at home, Joe's father is blinded by a chemical accident, and requires an expensive operation, which, if successful, will regain his sight...

The novel has two main plots; one set in the real world at the time the book was published (the Victorian era), the other in the fantasy world of Fairyland. While the latter plot is a fairytale with many nonsense elements and poems, similar to Carroll’s Alice books, the story set in Victorian Britain is a social novel, with its characters discussing various concepts and aspects of religion, society, philosophy and morality. This book is the first of two volumes and the two intertwining stories are brought to a close in the second volume, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.

It is with the desire of aiding parents and teachers in telling these stories, and aiding children to understand them, also in the hope that they may be read in many schools, that a few among the many interesting stories in the Bible have been chosen, brought together and as far as necessary simplified to meet the minds of the young. - Introduction by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut inside the book itself.

Set in nineteenth century New England, Little Women follows the lives of the four March sisters-Jo, Beth, Amy and Meg. The novel is a classic rites of passage story, that has often split literature critics but has been adored by many over the years. Intended as a book for young girls, the book is too sentimental for some but plenty of adults and young men have Little Women firmly featured in their best books of all time. The pace of the novel can be slow at times and the language almost too perfect but the overall sympathetic tone of Alcott wins over the reader...

Louisa May Alcott, more famously known for her Little Women series, takes a familiar nursery rhyme and creates a whole novel out of it in one of her last books Jack and Jill: A Village Story. Though she continued to publish under the penname AM Barnard, this book probably marked the end of a particular writing phase in 1880. Jack and Jill is set in the fictional Harmony Village. On a December afternoon, the youngsters of the village are out enjoying the bracing cold and snow. The bright winter shines down as they have fun skating and sledding...

Polly Milton, a 14-year-old country girl, visits her friend Fanny Shaw and her wealthy family in the city for the first time. Poor Polly is overwhelmed by the splendor at the Shaws’ and their urbanized, fashionable lifestyles, fancy clothes and some other habits she considers weird and, mostly, unlikable. However, Polly’s warmth, support and kindness eventually win her the hearts of all the family members. Six years later, Polly comes back to the city to become a music teacher.

“These stories were written for my own amusement during a period of enforced seclusion. The flowers which were my solace and pleasure suggested titles for the tales and gave an interest to the work. If my girls find a little beauty or sunshine in these common blossoms, their old friend will not have made her Garland in vain.” – L.M. Alcott, September, 1887

"When two young girls decide to have a tea party with their dolls and a mysterious dog comes and eats their prized cake, they end up finding a circus run-away, Ben Brown. Ben is a horse master, and loves horses, so when the Moss' take the young boy in, they decide to give him work at the neighbors house driving cows (on a horse, of course). After that a series of events happens, and Ben finds out his beloved father is dead. Miss Celia, a neighbor, feels sorry and comforts him, and finally offers to let Ben stay with her and her fourteen-year-old brother, Thornton who is called Thorny...

A collection of short stories by Louisa May Alcott that were written with the intent to entertain the whole family and to fill children's heads with wonder and delight.

Flower Fables is Louisa May Alcott’s first book, penned at 16 for Ralph Waldo Emerson’s daughter, Ellen.

A group of stories-within-a-story, told in the classic Louisa May Alcott style. "I've a little cold," said the old lady, "and am too hoarse for talking, my dears; but Aunt Elinor has looked up a parcel of old tales that I've told her at different times and which she has written down. You will like to hear her reading better than my dull way of telling them, and I can help Minnie and Lotty with their work, for I see they are bent on learning to spin." The young folk were well pleased with grandma's proposal; for Aunt Nell was a favorite with all, being lively and kind and fond of children, and the only maiden aunt in the family...

This story is based upon the experiences of two Belgian refugees in World War I. When their parents are marched of by Germans, Jan and Marie are left alone. Now they, along with their dog, have to find their parents!

The Dutch Twins are Kit and Kat, 5 years old and not yet big enough to be called by their real names, Christopher and Katrina. They live in a typical Dutch household, around the turn of the last century. The book follows their day-to-day adventures and accidental mishaps. The book is the first of a series of stories about twins in different countries, meant to give children an idea of life and customs in various parts of the world.

A collection of short stories first published in 1912, the book focuses on events occurring in the popular fictional village of Avonlea, which is notorious as the hometown of Anne Shirley. Comprised of 12 short stories, the Chronicles of Avonlea present a different view of the town, with the introduction of many new gripping characters, which prove to be just as endearing as their most renowned resident. Tales of everyday snippets of life proving to be humorous, identifiable, and heartwarming, the collection is an effective reinvigoration to the classic setting...

Rilla of Ingleside is the eighth book in the Anne of Green Gables series and focuses on the inspiring journey of Rilla Blythe, the youngest daughter of Anne and Gilbert, as she transforms from a carefree young girl into an enduring young woman swept into the chaos of war. Written from a female perspective, Montgomery accurately depicts a time in history, as she provides a contemporaneous account of the war and serves up the most emotional book in the series. Set during the First World War, the novel explores themes of coming of age, love, separation, and most importantly women’s roles during the war...

If you've read and loved Anne of Green Gables, you'd definitely like to add Rainbow Valley by Lucy Maud Montgomery to your collection. Published in 1919, it is the seventh book in the series and follows the further life and adventures of Anne Shirley. At Ingleside, Anne is now happily married to her childhood friend the devoted Gilbert Blythe and have now been together blissfully for fifteen years. They have six children. The book opens with the return of Anne and Gilbert (who is now a brilliant doctor) from a sojourn in London, where they had gone to attend a big medical congress...

Further Chronicles of Avonlea is a collection of short stories by L.M. Montgomery and is a sequel to Chronicles of Avonlea. Published in 1920, it includes a number of stories relating to the inhabitants of the fictional Canadian village of Avonlea and its region, located on Prince Edward Island. The book was published without the permission of L.M. Montgomery, and was formed from stories she had decided not to publish in the earlier Chronicles of Avonlea. Montgomery sued her publishers, L.C. Page & Co, and won $18,000 in damages after a legal battle lasting nearly nine years.

Teenagers Peggy Prescott and her brother Roy share a love of aviation that they inherited from their late father. Mr. Prescott had always dreamed of building an aeroplane that would be free of the defects of planes already invented. Peggy and Roy manage to build a plane starting with the framework their father had begun. Peggy christens it ‘The Golden Buttefly’ and she and Roy are determined to enter it in a young aviator’s contest for a prize of $5000. The Prescotts need the money desperately to save the home they share with their aunt which is about to be taken from them by the rather nasty banker, Mr...

This is a collection of six short stories by Margaret Gatty, writing as Mrs. Alfred Gatty. All told by 'an elder girl' in a large family to the 8 little ones gathered around. "There is not a more charming sight in the domestic world, than that of an elder girl in a large family, amusing what are called the little ones. "How could mamma have ventured upon that cosy nap in the arm-chair by the fire, if she had been harassed by wondering what the children were about? Whereas, as it was, she had overheard No...

So the parties separated and then Dorothy was free to leave her hiding place. She longed to tell her friends the strange story, but she knew that the finding of Tavia was the one and only thing to be thought of just then. “Are you sure that this is the direction in which the boys went?” asked Nat, with something like a sigh. Dorothy looked over the rough woodland. “No,” she said, “there was a swamp, for I distinctly remember that they picked their way through tall grass, and about here the grass is actually dried up.” (Extract from Chapter 26)

Relates the details of a mystery that surrounded Tanglewood Park. There is a great snowstorm, and the young folks become snowbound, much to their dismay.

When Cora Kimball got her new auto for her birthday she had no idea what adventures would start for her and brother Jack.Where did Ed’s money and bonds disappear? Were they misplaced or were they stolen and lost forever.Did the conceited Sid Wilcox have something to do with the missing money, with the help of Ida Giles? And what did the obnoxious Lem Gildy have to do with it all?Join Cora and her friends in this mystery and adventure of The Motor Girls.

This is the second book in the series of the Motor Girls. Join Cora and her friends in this mystery and adventure of The Motor Girls. Also the search for a missing table and promise book belonging to a cripple girl called Wren. Why is Clip so mysterious? What is she up to? Is Sid Wilcox up to his old tricks with his chum Rob Roland?

Five Little Peppers Midway is the joyous continuation of the Pepper family's story. A snooty cousin comes to stay with the Peppers, and yet even this can't dampen the joy the Pepper children feel about the wonderful prospect of Mamsie's upcoming wedding!

This book is the next in the series of the Five Little Peppers, by Margaret Sidney, after Five Little Peppers and How They Grew and Five Little Peppers Midway. It continues the series where Ben, Polly, Joel, Davie, and Phronsie get to travel abroad in Europe!

Polly Pepper loves to tell stories, but there just isn't enough room in the other books to include her stories! So, since "the author has received from mothers and other persons interested in the Pepper Family, so many requests for the Stories told by Polly Pepper ... this initial volume of Polly’s earlier stories has been prepared in obedience to these requests" . So curl up at Polly's feet, in front of the warm fire, and enjoy the Stories Polly Pepper Told to the Five Little Peppers in the Little Brown House! - Summary by Rachel

Through delightful outings with her students, a teacher introduces her class to the fascinating world of insects. She encourages her students to observe and ask questions. This is a wonderful science text for young children.

A young New-Yorker of twelve heard an appeal for the Fatherless Children of France and his heart was touched. He had no money, but he resolved to give his spare time and his utmost energy to support a "kid in France." The French child needed ten cents worth of extra food each day, in order to grow up with strength and courage. The little American godfather earned those ten cents; he sold newspapers at the subway entrance, after school hours, and undertook an amazing variety of more or less lucrative odd jobs...

This is the authoritative book written by Montessori to describe her methods. It gives an overview of the Montessori Method as developed for 3 to 6 year olds. It is a short work, intended as a manual for teachers and parents, detailing the materials used as well as her philosophy in developing them. "As a result of the widespread interest that has been taken in my method of child education, certain books have been issued, which may appear to the general reader to be authoritative expositions of the Montessori system...

If ever there was a story written based unabashedly on adventure and trouble, this is it. There are treasure hunts and murderers on the run in this book that will keep you spellbound. Tom and his half-brother, Sid, lived with their aunt, Polly. Tom was a boisterous young fellow who constantly found himself in rather awkward situations that landed him into trouble. These situations were however exceedingly hilarious. On one occasion, Tom dirtied his clothes in a fight and his punishment was to whitewash the fence the following day...

A poor young boy from the slums of London watches a royal procession pass, with the youthful Prince of Wales riding at its head. He ventures too close and is caught and beaten by the Prince's guards. However, the young royal stops them and invites the vagrant to the palace. Here the two boys sup alone and are stunned to discover that they bear a startling resemblance to each other. The Prince is Edward, long awaited heir of the monarch, Henry VIII, while the vagrant is Tom Canty, the son of a thief and a beggar...

Elsie, young and motherless, has never met her father and is being raised by her father’s family. As a strong Christian, she has many trials within the unbelieving family. Her greatest comforts are her faith and her mammy, Chloe. Finally, her father returns home. Will her father love her? Will her father learn to love Jesus?

This is the second book of the much loved Elsie Dinsmore series and starts where the first book left off. Elsie is still recuperating from her weakness, with her kind and indulgent father by her side.The story revolves around how a strong bond of love and understanding takes root between the father and daughter, as they holiday at Roselands, and visit exciting places, with some of our favorite friends from the first book, Mr. Travilla, Adelaide, Chloe, Lora and the others.

In the third book of Martha Finley's much-loved Elsie Dinsmore series, Elsie's life is traced from the tender age of 12 or 13 to the mature age of 21. Her life is not all sunshine and roses, but she is secure in the love of the Lord and her family.

The fourth book in the Elsie Dinsmore series, Elsie grows into a young woman. She marries her father's old friend, Edward Travilla, and together start a family. The latter half of the book occurs during the Civil War.

After the Civil War, Elsie and her family return to their home in the South, dealing with the upheaval that the Reconstruction Era brought during the years after the war.

Mary Godolphin was the pseudonym of Lucy Aikin who undertook translating great literature into single-syllable words so that young readers could enjoy plots that were considerably more interesting than, say, the McGuffey readers of the 1880’s or the “Dick and Jane” primers of the 1950s (still around today as “decodable readers” in elementary schools). She produced this volume based on Daniel Defoe’s most famous work, considered by many to be the first English novel (1719). She also rendered Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and Wyss’ Swiss Family Robinson, which she translated as well.

This book is about Norah Linton, her brother Jim, her father David and Jim's chum Wally from Australia. They all move to England during WWI because Jim and Wally want to fight in the war.When a Irish friend of the family dies, Norah inherits a big house in Surrey: Homewood. To keep up the Irishman's memory they want to use the house to help the war effort. They turn it into a home for "Tired People"--soldiers recovering from injuries, or soldiers on leave that have no family to go home to, can come here to have a good time and enjoy the country-side, so that they can go back to their regiments fully rested and restored...

An Australian childrens' classic about life on a ranch around the same time of A Little Florida Lady, with a similarly plucky tomboy heroine. Also, like the latter story, expect some racial stereotyping of Asian and Aboriginal characters. This originally ran as a newspaper serial and it shows in the episodic nature of the chapters, such as a vivid trip to the circus sandwiched by talk of a mad killer and an unexpectedly sentimental ending.

This delightful little book is one of many titles in The Little Cousin Series. The author narrates details in the life of a fictional Russian girl named Petrovna. In doing so she introduces children to Russian life and culture at the turn of the 20th century. - Summary by Marie Christian

The Palace in the Garden is the engaging story of three orphans sent to live in the mysterious country cottage of Rosebuds. The inquisitive children piece together the unexpected mystery of the Palace in the garden & all that goes with it. The story has a few twists. This book put me in mind of the Secret Garden.(Introduction by ilianthe)

A collection of Arthurian tales retold for children.