Ben Mikaelsen

When thirteen-year-old Josh runs away to the mountains of Montana with an orphaned bear cub destined for laboratory testing, they both must fight for their lives in a sudden snowstorm.

They call Gabriela Tree Girl. Gabi climbs trees to be within reach of the eagles and watch the sun rise into an empty sky. She is at home among the outstretched branches of the Guatemalan forests. Then one day from the safety of a tree, Gabi witnesses the sights and sounds of an unspeakable massacre. She vows to be Tree Girl no more and joins the hordes of refugees struggling to reach the Mexican border. She has lost her whole family; her entire...

Twelve-year-old Koby isn't like the other kids in her class. She lost her right foot in an accident four years ago, and she is keenly aware that her classmates don't know how to act around her. The only place she feels at home is in her small boat, where she can watch whales play in the ocean. When Koby discovers a stranded mother whale and her baby, she realizes that their survival depends on her ability to keep them breathing through the night....

Eighth-grader Ricky Diaz and his dad, an ex-DEA agent, love to fly loops over the desert in their Baby Great Lakes biplane. But when Ricky learns that his mother's death in an auto crash the year before wasn't an accident, he decides to put his flying talents to a real test. Disguised as a ragged street kid, he travels to Mexico and into the compound of the drug smugglers who were responsible for his mother's death. His target is an airplane that...

After soldiers kill his family, twelve-year-old Santiago and his four-year-old sister flee Guatemala in a kayak and try to reach the United States.

In 1922, Petey, who has cerebral palsy, is misdiagnosed as an idiot and institutionalized; sixty years later, after he is moved to a nursing home, he befriends a boy and shares with him the joy of life.