After the sudden death of their parents, the three Baudelaire children must depend on each other and their wits when it turns out that the distant relative who is appointed their guardian is determined to use any means necessary to get their fortune.

Two decades after a pair of orphaned brothers are separated when one of them flees after a murder accusation, the runaway brother, now a seasoned killer, returns to North Carolina to protect his brother and solve the mystery of their past.

1932, Minnesota. The Lincoln School is a pitiless place where hundreds of Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to an orphan named Odie O'Banion, a lively boy whose exploits earn him the superintendent's wrath. Forced to flee, he and his brother Albert, their best friend Mose, and a little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call...

Carpenter gets a mysterious phone call from a good friend, policeman Pete Stanton, asking him to drop everything, drive to an unfamiliar address, and bring his girlfriend, Laurie Collins. Pete has just discovered the body of ex-convict Danny Diza. Upstairs are Danny's now orphaned eight-year-old son and basset hound. And that, Andy discovers, is why he and Laurie were called to the scene-- Pete wants them to take care of the boy and the dog so they...

Years after gaining unexpected custody of her sister's three small children, a woman experiences emotional division when the grown children choose very different paths in life, in a tale set in Manhattan, Paris, and Tehran.

Nine-year-old orphaned Oliver Twist escapes a workhouse and travels to London to seek a better life.

Orphaned in the cholera epidemic of 1833, Adria Starr was cared for by a slave named Louis, a man who stayed in Springfield, Kentucky, when anyone with means had fled. A man who passed up the opportunity to escape his bondage and instead tended to the sick and buried the dead. A man who, twelve years later, is being sold by his owners despite his heroic actions. Now nineteen, Adria has never forgotten what Louis did for her. She's determined to find...