Katherine Paterson

Jesse Aarons trained all summer to become the fastest runner in school. So he's very upset when newcomer Leslie Burke outruns him and everyone else. Despite this and other differences including that she's rich, he's poor, she's a city girl, and he's a country boy the two become fast friends. Together they create Terabithia, a land of monsters, trolls, ogres, and giants where they rule as king and queen.

Young and feisty Gilly Hopkins devises a scheme to escape from her new foster home and reunite with her birth mother.

Jess Aarons and new girl Leslie Burke create a world of their own and call it Terabithia and pretend to be the king and queen. They return to their magical kingdom every day after school.

In the early 1940s, a depressed young woman, who's been eclipsed all of her life by her beautiful twin sister, tries to overcome her low self-esteem with help from a crusty old sea captain.

Lyddie faces a daunting task: She's struggling to reunite her family and save their farm. To do that, she takes a job at a cotton mill and, with the help of Diana (who's toiled in the mills since age 10), learns that there are risks involved with being a factory girl -- namely, dangerous working conditions and low wages. Soon, Lyddie finds herself in the forefront of a suffrage movement to better those appalling conditions.

Life does a 180-degree turn for bitter spinster Lettie (Mary Tyler Moore) when she takes in her 9-year-old grandniece, Travis (Holliston Coleman), in this Emmy Award-winning movie. Confused by her aunt's cold treatment, Travis attempts to uncover the reason for Lettie's self-imposed seclusion by befriending farmhand Isaiah (Charles Robinson) and Lettie's former beau Sam (Burt Reynolds). Can the three reawaken Lettie's long-gone love of life?

"The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks" is an animated version of the 1990 children's book of the same name, written by Katherine Paterson, and Illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon, based on a Japanese folktale. The description for the original book reads thus, "A pair of mandarin ducks, separated by a cruel lord who wishes to possess the drake for his colorful beauty, reward a compassionate couple who risk their lives to reunite the ducks."