Animal Friendships

While on a whale-watching excursion with her dad, Willa is alone on one side of the boat when she sees a humpback whale. Her awe and wonderment about this massive and beautiful creature turns to shock when the whale communicates with her, introducing herself as Meg. As their friendship develops, Willa comes to view Meg as a trusted confidant - who offers her advice about difficult issues in Willa’s life.

Ten years ago, an impossible thing happened: A flock of pigeons picked up a human baby who had been abandoned in an empty lot and carried her, bundled in blankets, to their roof. Coo has lived her entire life on the rooftop with the pigeons who saved her. It’s the only home she’s ever known. But then, a hungry hawk nearly kills Burr, the pigeon she loves most, and leaves him gravely hurt. Coo must make a perilous trip to the ground for the first time to find Tully, a retired postal worker who occasionally feeds Coo’s flock and who can heal injured birds.

Twelve-year-old Natalia Rose Baleine Gallagher loves possibilities: the possibility that she'll see whales on the beach near her new home, the possibility that the trans-gender boy she just met will become her new best friend, the possibility that the paparazzi hounding her celebrity father won't force them to move again. Most of all, Nat dreams of the possibility that her faraway mother misses her, loves her, and is just waiting for Nat to find her....

It's been months since Benji's former therapy dog, Elvis, was whisked away by the Secret Service, but Benji still misses him terribly. Luckily, because Elvis is now the president's dog, Benji can keep tabs on him via all the pictures and videos that are online. While watching footage of the president's speech on the White House lawn, Benji and his friends Alexander and Taisy notice Elvis doing something very strange with his tail. Could he be trying to send them a message?

A name is destiny...or is it? Young Vicky is reeling from the loss of her old horse Joe, but eager to help the flighty, impossible to ride young mare, Witch. Unpredictable and dangerous, Witch's future is bleak. In her first moment with the horse no one trusted, Vicky changed Witch's name to Gidget, a hopeful benediction. "If only changing her name is all it took to change behavior," the farm owner laments. Despite her new name, Gidget, the horse formerly known as Witch, struggles to abandon old, unstable habits.

Twelve-year-old Blue’s mom has always told her, "Just bloom where you’re planted." And it’s a good motto, considering Mam never stays in one job or one place for very long. Then Mam gets hired as a hand at the 2 Bar Ranch, and for the first time, Blue finds in its rundown buildings and majestic mountain setting a place she longs to call home. There she makes a friend in an enigmatic Indian named Shawn, whose search for an ancient petroglyph intrigues her. And it’s there that the faint auras Blue has always noticed around people begin to grow brighter....

Daniel is dyslexic, and most of the time, school just doesn't make sense. He's in the bottom reading group at school with other kids who are trying to make sense of it all. There's Akin who can't sit still for more than two minutes and is almost always getting into trouble, sports star Ste is recovering from a car accident that left him learning how to walk again, and Molly-May's school uniform never fits and is a regular at the local foodbank. But when a mystery horse gallops into their lives one stormy evening, it changes everything.

Laika is a “Cold Dog" - a stray pawing the streets of Moscow until Soviet researchers take her to live at the top-secret facility. Nervous and alone, she learns she will be trained to become a “starflyer”, an animal launched into outer space in the Soviet’s race against American innovation. Twelve-year-old Nina is also a “Cold Girl", heartbroken after her best friend defects to America. When Nina and Laika meet in Nina’s father’s lab, their growing bond slowly warms the cold that has settled in each other’s hearts.

Parfois, entre un animal et un être humain, naît plus qu'une complicité : une histoire d'amour... Été 1964. à Beaucastel, dans le Gard, les chansons yéyés résonnent dans les transistors et les enfants piquent une tête dans les eaux claires de la Cèze pour se rafraîchir.

It's the summer before eighth grade and Flor is stuck at home and working at her family's mattress store, while her best friend goes off to band camp (probably to make new friends). It becomes even worse when she's asked to compete in the local honey pageant. This means Flor has to spend the summer practicing her talent (recorder) and volunteering (helping a recluse bee-keeper) with Candice, her former friend who's still bitter about losing the pageant crown to Flor when they were in second grade. And she can't say no.

Kit-with-a-small-k is navigating middle school with a really big, really strange secret: When she's stressed, she turns into a naked mole rat. It first happened after kit watched her best friend, Clem, fall and get hurt during an acrobatic performance on TV. Since then, the transformations keep happening - whether kit wants them to or not. Kit can't tell Clem about it, because after the fall, Clem just hasn't been herself. She's sad and mad and gloomy, and keeping a secret of her own: the real reason she fell.

Magnolia Grace never wanted to leave Georgia. She never wanted to move with her mama to the farm her daddy owned before he died. But now here she is - in a tiny Vermont town where everybody sings the praises of the father she never knew. Then Maggie meets the Parker family - two moms, six kids, plus a pony. The Parkers are loud and wild, ask lots of questions, and don't follow any of the rules Maggie grew up with in Georgia.

When a landslide on the Jurassic Coast reveals a rare ‘dragon’ dinosaur, best friends Kat Wolfe and Harper Lamb are thrilled, especially when stars and scientists come flocking to sleepy Bluebell Bay. But after they begin investigating a suspicious death, events spiral quickly out of control for detectives Wolfe and Lamb. Worse still, Kat’s wild cat is in trouble. Can they solve the mystery - and save the cat's life - before it’s too late?

For the past four years, Rick Walker has been shuffled between foster care and group homes. At 14, he’s a kid nobody wants or cares about. Now he’s headed for Blue Canyon Detention Center. For Rick, life is a maze full of dead ends. But when he is threatened at Blue Canyon and runs away, Rick finds himself in a real maze - the enormous rocky expanse of Canyonlands National Park in Utah. There, Rick meets a biologist who has devoted his life to reintroducing the condor to its natural habitat. As Rick joins him to protect the giant birds, the teenager will begin to see choices instead of dead ends.

Seit Peter den Fuchswelpen Pax vor dem sicheren Tod gerettet und ihn aufgezogen hat, sind die beiden unzertrennlich. Aber dann kommt der Krieg und reißt beide auseinander. Hunderte von Kilometern und tausend Gefahren müssen Peter und Pax überwinden, um einander wiederzufinden... Sara Pennypackers poetische Geschichte rührt von der ersten bis zur letzten Minute und ist ein Plädoyer für Herz und Menschlichkeit. Der Pianist Rainer Bielfeldt begleitet die Abenteuerreise mit bewegender Musik.

The adventures of Ratty, Mole, Badger, and Toad of Toad Hall. The Wind in the Willows appeals to both children and adults, but for different reasons. Children love the zany Toad of Toad Hall and his frantic escapades. Adults appreciate the lyrical, superlatively wistful descriptions of the rustic English landscape.

There's nothing 10-year-old Lily Sinclair likes about her new life in the city with her single mom. She misses her best friend, who seems to have forgotten her and their secret place, Willowood. She never sees her mom, who's working long hours at her new job. She's managed to make an enemy of the class bully. Mrs. Hiller from across the hall, who takes care of Lily after school, keeps preparing yucky healthy snacks for her. And she can't get her mother to tell her anything about her absent father. Her only source of comfort is her beloved pet gecko, Weemis.

Concerned for Benji's health, the doctor offers him two options: wear the world's ugliest padded helmet or get a therapy dog. Benji chooses the dog, of course. But when a massive crate arrives at Benji's house, out walks a two hundred-pound Newfoundland. And that isn't even the strangest thing about the dog. He announces that his name is Parker Elvis Pembroke IV. That's right, this dog can talk!

Abby knows that Tam, her Shetland sheepdog, is her north star, and she’s pretty certain she’s his, too. But when an accident separates Abby and Tam, it feels as though all the stars have fallen out of the sky and nothing will ever be right again. As the days between them turn to weeks, then months, dangers and changes fill up Abby’s and Tam’s lives. Will they ever find their way home to each other?

Annie has been promised a summer of freedom in the country. Freedom from a difficult school year, freedom from her fake "friends" back in the city, and, most of all, freedom from her mom's life-governing spreadsheets and rigid schedules.