New Releases by Sarah Ellis

Jessica knew that the family meeting Dad had called for that evening probably wouldn''t be good news. Family meetings usually meant Mum talking a lot and then the whole family getting involved in some project that left everything in a mess until they gradually forgot about it. But at school that day, Jessica forgot about the meeting. A teacher announced a new class project: They were to choose partners, pick an animal to study and present a paper. Jessica''s partner would be her best friend, Margaret. And so it was Margaret whom Jessica called with the tremendous news from the family meeting: Mum was pregnant. Margaret was nearly as excited as Jessica, and very quickly the two of them decided that instead of studying the duck-billed platypus for the school project, they would study babies. But all their reading, discussions and research did not prepare Jessica or her family for the drastic changes baby Lucie would bring to their lives.

Her family''s move to a new town in Canada leaves shy twelve-year-old Peggy feeling lonely and uncomfortable, until she befriends the unconventional George and the Chinese servant of her imperious neighbor Mrs. Manning.

Excited by the unexpected prospect of a baby, eleven-year-old Jessica and her family eagerly prepare for the changes the new arrival will bring to their lives.

Desperate to fit in at her new school Peggy Davies tells her classmates that she owned a horse in the country -- a lie that will make her family''s move to the city even more of a nightmare than she had imagined. Will her new classmates find out the truth? If they do, will she ever find friends? Or will she have to turn for companionship to her neighbors -- Sing, who works for the wealthy woman next door, and George, the weirdest boy in the entire school?