Lowji Discovers America by Candace Fleming

When Lowji is upset about moving all the way from India to America, his father urges him to find the silver lining. It takes some doing, but Lowji finally thinks about having a cat - and a dog - and maybe a horse! His best friend Jamshed told him that people in America ride horses all the time.

But when they arrive in America, at their little apartment house that smells so lemony-fresh, Lowji discovers there isn't as much of a silver lining as he thought there would be. He still isn't allowed to have a pet, not even a tiny little mouse, and his family's landlady, Mrs. Crisp, keeps scolding him for making more work for her. The kids he sees around town mostly ignore him, and all-in-all Lowji is a little bored - and a lot lonely.

But he's sure he can find ways to help Mrs. Crisp with her workload. And there's the mystery of the footprints in the woods behind the apartment house. And there might not actually be any horses to ride, but there is... a pig???

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

"The land is no place for a Gribley," Sam's Dad always says, talking about the farm that Sam's Great-Grandfather built, plowed - and then left when he realized he truly wanted to be a sailor.

Dad had been a sailor too, but Sam isn't sure that means that all Gribleys are meant for the sea. As a matter of fact, he's determined to go out to the Catskill Mountains and find the old beech with the family name carved into it. And when he does... Well, he might as well stay out there and try living in the woods. All on his own. With only a knife, some string, and flint'n'steel in his pockets.

Join Sam as he learns about the wild animals of the forest, works out how to catch fish and trap animals, and figures out how to make clothes from deerskins he's cured. Worry with him as he tries to start a fire and makes a home, keeping it hidden from hikers and forest rangers. Learn with him as he raises Frightful, a young peregrine falcon, to be his friend and fellow hunter.

I think everyone dreams of running away from home at least once in their lives. For those of us who don't make it more than halfway down the block, here's the adventure we might have had.

100 Days and 99 Nights by Alan Madison

Meet Esme. At seven years old, she's already lived in Kenya, Korea, and Germany. That's because her dad, August Aloysius McCarther the Third, is a sergeant in the United States Army. That means that Esme, her little brother Ike, and their mom and dad go to live wherever the Army tells them to, whenever they are told to. It's their duty, which Esme knows means doing something that no one in the whole entire universe really wants to do.

But on the other hand, traveling all over the world has given her the chance to collect her bedzoo: thirty-one stuffed animals running the length of the alphabet (Aardvark to Zebra, with the eXception of X, because there are no animals that start with X) that remind her of all the places she's been and all the people she loves.

Besides, their family is always together, with their everyday routines that make life so good. Like making pancakes on Saturday morning, or movie nights on Fridays. Esme's Dad always has silly words or strange sayings - what does "than you can shake a stick at" really have to do with anything? - and he is, Esme knows, the strongest, bravest person alive.

But then one Saturday Dad tells them he has to go away for a tour of duty - one hundred days and ninety-nine nights in a faraway place. And gradually Esme learns that her Dad isn't the only strong, brave person in the family.