Karen Cushman
In 1849 a twelve-year-old girl who calls herself Lucy is distraught when her mother moves the family from Massachusetts to a small California mining town. There Lucy helps run a boarding house and looks for comfort in books while trying to find a way to return "home."
Meggy arrives in London expecting to be welcomed by her father, who sent for her, but he doesn't want her to assist in his laboratory when he sees that not only is she female, she needs two sticks to walk. Sent on trivial errands, she learns to navigate the city, which is earthy and colorful as well as dirty, noisy, and filled with rogues and thieves. Meanwhile she is befriended by the alchemist's former assistant, and when it appears that her
...7) Matilda Bone
Into the fascinating, pungent setting of Blood and Bone Alley, home of leech, barber-surgeon, and apothecary, comes Matilda, raised by a priest to disdain worldly affairs and focus on spiritual matters. To Matilda's dismay, her work will not involve Latin or writing,...