Nancy Farmer

In 2137, fourteen-year-old Matt is stunned to learn that, as the clone of El Patrón, he is expected to take over as leader of the corrupt drug empire of Opium, where there is also a hidden cure for the ecological devastation faced by the rest of the world.

After Jack becomes apprenticed to a Druid bard, he and his little sister Lucy are captured by Viking Berserkers and taken to the home of King Ivar the Boneless and his half-troll queen, leading Jack to undertake a vital quest to Jotunheim, home of the trolls.

While fleeing from Mozambique to Zimbabwe to escape an unwanted marriage, Nhamo, an eleven-year-old Shona girl, struggles to escape drowning and starvation and in so doing comes close to the luminous world of the African spirits.

When Ruva, a young giraffe, is captured and sent to a zoo in San Francisco, she calls upon two rats, a street-smart chameleon, a runaway boy, and all the magical powers of the animal world to return to the warm place that is home.

When seven-year-old Ali's greedy pet steals cherries from the wicked Sultan for whom his father keeps carrier pigeons, Ali is given three days to find 600 new cherries or his father will be thrown into the deep, dark oubliette. Includes facts about carrier pigeons and the sultan on whom this story is based, as well as an excerpt from "In Praise of Books" by al-Jahiz.

A collection of sixteen short science fiction and fantasy stories by award-winning authors.