A consummate prankster with a quick wit, Tom Sawyer dreams of a bigger fate than simply being a "rich boy." Yet through the novel's humorous escapades-from the famous episode of the whitewashed fence to the trial of Injun Joe-Mark Twain explores the deeper themes of the adult world, one of dishonesty and superstition, murder and revenge, starvation and slavery.

When her grandmother and guardian suffers a stroke, twelve-year-old Poppy Parker's life turns upside down--but when she witnesses a murder and has to go into witness protection with Detective Brannigan's mother it becomes hard to believe she will ever find a way home, let alone save Gunner, a beautiful German shepherd with an uncertain future.