Their magic tree house takes Jack and Annie back to retrieve a lost story in ancient Greece, where they witness the original Olympic games and are surprised to find what girls of the time were not allowed to do.

Young Parvana lives with her family in one room of a bombed-out apartment building in Kabul, Afghanistan. Because Parvana's father has a foreign education, he is arrested by the Taliban. Women cannot appear in public unless covered head to toe, go to school, or work outside the home, so the family becomes increasingly desperate until Parvana conceives a plan.

Reduced to begging and thievery in the streets of London, a thirteen-year-old orphan disguises herself as a boy and connives her way onto a British warship set for high sea adventure in search of pirates.

Faith Sunderly leads a double life. To most people, she is reliable, dull, trustworthy?a proper young lady who knows her place as inferior to men. But inside, Faith is full of questions and curiosity, and she cannot resist mysteries: an unattended envelope, an unlocked door. She knows secrets no one suspects her of knowing. She knows that her family moved to the close-knit island of Vane because her famous scientist father was fleeing a reputation-destroying...

On her first tour as a knight errant, Alanna assumes a position of influence with a fierce desert tribe, makes some changes in the role of women in the society, and continues her own emotional development.

Before they go to sleep at night, two brave boys talk about how boring girls are, with their dolls and their interest in clothes, and how afraid they are of everything, even ghosts, which they hope do not exist.

Shon begins to feel like he does all the hard work out in the fields, so he and his wife, Sian, switch jobs for the day, in this story based on an English folktale.

On Sarah's first night as a shepherdess, angels fall from the sky to proclaim the birth of Jesus, but she knows that she cannot leave her sheep to view the newborn, so she brings them with her into the town of Bethlehem.