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A Drowned Maiden's Hair

Laura Amy Schlitz · back to the book

What’s in it

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24 books with the same feel

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The Good Thief

Hannah Tinti · 368 pages

Con ArtistsOrphansAtmosphericMiddle Grade
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The Graveyard Book

Neil Gaiman · 308 pages

Bod is an unusual boy who inhabits an unusual place—he's the only living resident of a graveyard. Raised from infancy by the ghosts, werewolves, and other cemetery denizens, Bod has learned the antiquated customs of his guardians' time as well as their ghostly teachings—such as the ability to Fade so mere mortals cannot see him. Can a boy raised by ghosts face the wonders and terrors of the wor

OrphansBittersweetAtmosphericMiddle Grade
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Crooked Heart

Lissa Evans · 304 pages

"When Noel Bostock--aged ten, no family--is evacuated from London to escape the Nazi bombardment, he lands in a suburb northwest of the city with Vera Sedge--a thirty-six-year-old widow drowning in debts and dependents. Always desperate for money, she's unscrupulous about how she gets it. Noel's mourning his godmother, Mattie, a former suffragette. Wise beyond his years and raised with a disdain f

Con ArtistsOrphansBittersweetHistorical Fiction
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Harry Potter Boxset

J.K. Rowling

OrphansMiddle GradeAtmosphericKids in Danger
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The End

Lemony Snicket · 368 pages

When Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire find themselves in the same boat as Count Olaf, after all the treachery that happened at the Hotel Denoument, in the middle of nowhere, they think there is nothing worse that can happen, until a horrid storm comes. When the wake up they find themselves on a simple island, where you eat and drink the same things, wear the same things, and do the same things.

OrphansBittersweetMiddle GradeFound Family
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Jade Green

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor · 169 pages

While living with her uncle in a house haunted by the ghost of a young woman, recently orphaned Judith Sparrow wonders if her one small transgression causes mysterious happenings.

OrphansMiddle GradeAtmosphericHistorical Fiction
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Fly by Night

Frances Hardinge · 487 pages

Twelve-year-old Mosca Mye hasn't got much. Her cruel uncle keeps her locked up in his mill, and her only friend is her pet goose, Saracen, who'll bite anything that crosses his path. But she does have one small, rare thing: the ability to read. She doesn't know it yet, but in a world where books are dangerous things, this gift will change her life.

Con ArtistsOrphansMiddle GradeFemale Lead
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The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Brian Selznick · 534 pages

ORPHAN, CLOCK KEEPER, AND THIEF, twelve-year-old Hugo lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station, where his survival depends on secrets and anonymity. But when his world suddenly interlocks with an eccentric girl and the owner of a small toy booth in the train station, Hugo’s undercover life, and his most precious secret, are put in jeopardy. A cryptic drawing, a treasured notebook, a stolen

OrphansMiddle GradeAtmosphericHistorical Fiction
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Heaven Eyes

David Almond · 233 pages

Erin Law and her friends are Damaged Children. At least that is the label given to them by Maureen, the woman who runs the orphanage that they live in. Damaged, Beyond Repair because they have no parents to take care of them. But Erin knows that if they care for each other they can put up with the psychologists, the social workers, the therapists -- at least most of the time. Sometimes there is no

OrphansAtmosphericBittersweetMiddle Grade
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Plain Kate

Erin Bow · 320 pages

Plain Kate's odd appearance and expertise as a woodcarver cause some to think her a witch, but friendship with a talking cat and, later, with humans help her to survive and even thrive in a world of magic, charms, and fear.

OrphansMiddle GradeBittersweetAtmospheric
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No Name

Wilkie Collins · 548 pages

No Name is a 19th-century novel by the master of sensation fiction, Wilkie Collins. A country gentleman is killed in an accident and his wife dies shortly after him. The blow is double for their daughters, who discover that they were born before their parents were married. Their sudden illegitimacy robs them of their inheritance and their accustomed place in society.

OrphansCon ArtistsHistorical FictionGothic Fiction
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Milkweed

Jerry Spinelli · 232 pages

He’s a boy called Jew. Gypsy. Stopthief. Runt. Happy. Fast. Filthy son of Abraham. He’s a boy who lives in the streets of Warsaw. He’s a boy who steals food for himself and the other orphans. He’s a boy who believes in bread, and mothers, and angels. He’s a boy who wants to be a Nazi some day, with tall shiny jackboots and a gleaming Eagle hat of his own. Until the day that suddenly makes him

OrphansMiddle GradeBittersweetHistorical Fiction
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The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall

Mary Downing Hahn

In the nineteenth century, ten-year-old Florence Crutchfield leaves a London orphanage to live with her great-uncle, great-aunt, and sickly cousin James, but she soon realizes the home has another resident, who means to do her and James harm.

OrphansMiddle GradeHistorical FictionKids in Danger
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A Reliable Wife

Robert Goolrick · 291 pages

A widower advertises for "a reliable wife" and he chooses Catherine. To her surprise, Catherine learns to love Ralph and must, as a result, abandon the remaining traces of her former life and cope with the haunting effects of family secrets.

Con ArtistsAtmosphericHistorical FictionGothic Fiction
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The Sherwood Ring

Elizabeth Marie Pope · 266 pages

Newly orphaned Peggy Grahame is caught off-guard when she first arrives at her family’s ancestral estate. Her eccentric uncle Enos drives away her only new acquaintance, Pat, a handsome British scholar, then leaves Peggy to fend for herself. But she is not alone. The house is full of mysteries—and ghosts. Soon Peggy becomes involved with the spirits of her own Colonial ancestors and witnesses the

OrphansAtmosphericMiddle GradeHistorical Fiction
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Beyond the Bright Sea

Lauren Wolk · 283 pages

Twelve-year-old Crow has lived her entire life on a tiny, isolated piece of the starkly beautiful Elizabeth Islands in Massachusetts. Abandoned and set adrift in a small boat when she was just hours old, Crow's only companions are Osh, the man who rescued and raised her, and Miss Maggie, their fierce and affectionate neighbor across the sandbar. Crow has always been curious about the world around

OrphansMiddle GradeAtmosphericHistorical Fiction
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Behind the Attic Wall

Sylvia Cassedy · 315 pages

At twelve, Maggie had been thrown out of more boarding schools than she cared to remember. "Impossible to handle," they said — nasty, mean, disobedient, rebellious, thieving — anything they could say to explain why she must be removed from the school. Maggie was thin and pale, with shabby clothes and stringy hair, when she arrived at her new home. "It was a mistake to bring her here," said Maggie

OrphansBittersweetMiddle GradeGothic Fiction
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Alone on a Wide Wide Sea

Michael Morpurgo · 263 pages

The novel has two parts. The first follows Arthur Hobhouse's story, and the second follows the story of his daughter Allie.

OrphansBittersweetMiddle GradeHistorical Fiction
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The Black Book of Secrets

F.E. Higgins · 309 pages

Con ArtistsOrphansMiddle GradeAtmospheric
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The Grownup

Gillian Flynn · 71 pages

A canny young woman is struggling to survive by perpetrating various levels of mostly harmless fraud. On a rainy April morning, she is reading auras at Spiritual Palms when Susan Burke walks in. A keen observer of human behavior, our unnamed narrator immediately diagnoses beautiful, rich Susan as an unhappy woman eager to give her lovely life a drama injection. However, when the "psychic" visits t

Con ArtistsAtmosphericGothic FictionKids in Danger
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Oliver Twist

Charles Dickens · 409 pages

Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress, is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens. It was originally published as a serial from 1837 to 1839, and as a three-volume book in 1838. The story follows the titular orphan, who, after being raised in a workhouse, escapes to London, where he meets a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly criminal Fagin, discovers the secrets of hi

OrphansCon ArtistsKids in DangerHistorical Fiction
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Parvana's Journey

Deborah Ellis · 204 pages

Parvana sets out alone to walk across war torn Afghanistan in search of her family. Her mother, sister and little brother are missing and she has just buried her father. A look at the situation in Afghanistan and the courage and resilience that can keep children afloat even in the most terrible circumstances.

OrphansMiddle GradeKids in DangerHistorical Fiction
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Bud, Not Buddy

Christopher Paul Curtis · 249 pages

It's 1936, in Flint, Michigan. Times may be hard, and ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run, but Bud's got a few things going for him: 1. He has his own suitcase filled with his own important, secret things. 2. He's the author of Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself. 3. His momma never told him who his father was, but

OrphansBittersweetMiddle GradeHistorical Fiction
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Ordinary Monsters

J.M. Miro · 672 pages

OrphansAtmosphericHistorical FictionGothic Fiction

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