Orphan Beth Harmon overcomes her fears and shyness by learning to play chess and, over the years, improves her game to become a national champion and to play the world grandmasters.

When Mary Lennox, the unloved, contrary, and spoiled ten-year-old, is found alone in the deserted house after her parents' death, she is sent to live with an uncle whom she has never known. In Yorkshire, England, at his secluded Misselthwaite Manor, Martha Sowerby, a warm-hearted chambermaid, introduces Mary to the late Mrs. Craven and her private walled garden, which has been locked for years. Published more than a hundred years ago, The Secret Garden...

An orphaned boy is raised by ghosts and other denizens of the graveyard.

Orphaned by the Border Wars, Alina Starkov is taken from obscurity and her only friend, Mal, to become the protegé of the mysterious Darkling, who trains her to join the magical elite in the belief that she is the Sun Summoner, who can destroy the monsters of the Fold.

"A brilliant and immersive, all-consuming read about one fourteen-year-old girl's heart-stopping fight for her own soul. Turtle Alveston is a survivor. At fourteen, she roams the woods along the northern California coast. The creeks, tide pools, and rocky islands are her haunts and her hiding grounds, and she is known to wander for miles. But while her physical world is expansive, her personal one is small and treacherous: Turtle has grown up isolated...

A Swiss orphan is heartbroken when she must leave her beloved grandfather and their happy home in the mountains to go to school and to care for an invalid girl in the city.

Lame and suddenly orphaned, Kira is mysteriously removed from her squalid village to live in the palatial Council Edifice, where she is expected to use her gifts as a weaver to do the bidding of the all-powerful Guardians.

On a cold winter day in 1976, unmarried and pregnant, Tiggy packs up her camper van and drives west to the Cornwall moors to live with her friend Julia. Tiggys fianč recently died, and Julia, alone with her kids while her husband is at sea, gladly accepts Tiggy as her houseguest. Life is chaotic with the two women, two dogs, and Julias three children, but for Tiggy, with no family and a growing belly, its a haven. But theres something sinister lurking...

An orphan girl and her invalid cousin bring new life to their home on the moors when they discover the secret garden.

In Rudyard Kipling's 1901 novel Kim an orphan boy of poor Irish parents makes his living on the streets of Lahore running errands. After befriending a Tibetan monk, Kim undertakes several adventures which ultimately put him at the heart of The Great Game the geopolitical struggle between Britain and Russia for the control of India and Afghanistan. Notable for its vivid descriptions of the people, culture and landscape of India.