Marguerite Gavin
Eight-year-old Elsie Dinsmore is enjoying a blissful Christmas holiday season with her family when a crisis arises that threatens to change her life as she knows it. Her father has made a request of her that she believes would violate her conscience, and Elsie feels she must refuse him. But he fails to see her refusal as a matter of her deep faith in God, believing that Elsie is merely being willful and disobedient.
Elsie clings to the promise
...As Elsie Dinsmore grows up, her family undergoes major changes. Her father, Horace Dinsmore, falls in love and marries sweet Rose Allison, whom Elsie has loved since childhood. Soon two new members, Horace Jr. and Rosebud, join the happy family.
Elsie has grown into a graceful, accomplished, and beautiful young woman of fifteen who faces the difficulties of peer pressure, the allurements of the world outside her family, and the delights and
...9) Pray Hard
At twelve years old, Amelia Forrest has a lot to pray for: improving her poor grades, mending a strained relationship with her mama, and, most importantly, absolving her guilt over the role she played in her daddy's plane crash. Except that in the year since he died, Amelia has stopped believing in anything. Not prayer. Not miracles. And certainly not the crackpot visions of an ex-convict named Brother Mustard Seed who suddenly appeared at their
...Young Clara Barton is shy and lonely in her early days at boarding school. She is snubbed by the other girls because she doesn't know how to talk to them. But when she gets an opportunity to assist the local doctor, her shyness disappears, and Clara begins to discover her true calling as a nurse.
When her beloved dog, Patch, is run over by a wagon, Clara nurses him back to health. Clara will grow up to become the founder of the American Red
...11) Drawing Lessons
Twelve-year-old Aurora is an artist like her father. Through a hundred drawing lessons, he has guided her hand, trained her eye, taught her how to mix colors and achieve perspective. Together they plan to paint a beautiful mural for Rory's mother, maybe a sunset because she always misses the real sunset while she's at her job, supporting the family.
Rory goes to find her father in his studio so she can show him her sketch for the mural. But
...In a frightening incident, Elsie's husband, Edward Travilla, narrowly survives an accidental shooting when friends tease son Edward, Jr., into firing a loaded pistol. The shot grazes Edward's head, and he survives with only minor damage. Soon life in the Travilla household returns to its calm routine. In the meantime, Elsie welcomes a cousin from Scotland who brings a very special talent with him as well as news of her mother's ancestral family.
Elsie
...14) Susan B. Anthony
Six-year old Susan helps her grandmother in the kitchen and begins to learn the role of women in the household. It is 1825. Women are not allowed to vote and by law must obey their husbands. Seeing how hard the women of her family work, she is struck by the unfairness of such a law. Susan's lifelong dedication culminates in the 1920 election wherein women first gain the right to vote. This story gives children a historical sense of how one woman
...As a lowly freshman, Presley Moran walks high school corridors paved with the stuff of family legend. Her cousin, Barry, a senior heartthrob and brainy varsity letterman, insists that looking good on paper is the key to success. But Presley's young aunt Betsi, a former homecoming queen, has her own ideas about good looks and how to use them.
"Can you keep a secret?" Betsi asks Presley, who, at age fourteen, is eager to enter the adult world
...17) Ghost Ship
Vicki plans to spend her summer vacation waitressing at her father's seaside restaurant, Ye Olde Seashell Room: a must-see tourist destination with seashell-covered walls and a 230-year-old figurehead from a lost ship, the Storm Goddess. But when the bay mysteriously goes dry and the Storm Goddess suddenly appears, Vicki and her small community are thrown off course. Now the town's greedy mayor sees dollar signs from potential new tourism, a nosy
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