Books with author Margaret J. Anderson

Jay's a cyborg who looks just like normal teenage girl. She's super-strong, super-smart, and she can even appear to grow and age like a human. When a covert organization intent on using Jay as a weapon comes after her, she needs to find a place where she can blend in. Greenfield High seems perfect... except that the boys all think she's totally hot and keep hitting on her, and she has no clue how to handle the attention. Who knew high school could be so perilous?To add to her confusion she's evolving - experiencing human emotions for the first time. And when she encounters ex-jock-turned-outcast Tyler, he sends her logical brain into a spin. She's just starting to get the hang of this girlfriend/boyfriend thing when her pursuers track her down. Now's sooo not the time for a cyborg to fall in love and get all emotional! **Young Adult paranormal, 68000 words; contains swearing, and themes more suited to older YA readers**~Optioned for TV by Cream Drama, Inc., Canada~Winner, YA category: Gulf Coast RWA's Silken Sands Self-Published Star contest ~Winner, YA category: Maryland Romance Writers Reveal Your Inner Vixen contest ~Best YA nominee: eFestival of Words Book Fair Best of the Independent eBook AwardsThe Freaks Series so far:~Freaks of Greenfield High~Freaks in the City~Freaks Under FireOther Young Adult books by Maree Anderson:LIMINAL: Wren's a liminal who can phase in and out of the real world. And like everything that's supposed to be cool, it's complicated. She's caught between two warring factions who'd kill to get a piece of her. Someone's blocked my energy flows so if she phases she'll be trapped in a ghostlike plane called Between... and die. And to top it all off, she's totally crushing on mysterious bad boy Kade. Her life's spinning out of control. She doesn't know who to trust anymore. And what she finds lurking Between is the biggest shock of all.

Insects are the world's greatest success story. They have adapted to all kinds of environments and thrive on a bizarre variety of diets. The face fly gets its nourishment from a horse's tears, and there are beetles that raise their offspring on elephant dung. The praying mantis sometimes eats its own mate. Insects are both our friends and our foes. Featuring lively text and amazing photographs, this book entertains and educates the reader with a fascinating glimpse into the lives of the most numerous animals on earth.

In a spur-of-the-moment decision made in the chaos of a crowded Edinburgh railway station at the start of World War II, two young evacuees trade places, names and lives. Shy, wealthy Marjorie Malcolm Scott, on her way to stay with relatives in Canada, becomes Shona McInnes, an adventurous orphan bound for a small town in the south of Scotland. Neither girl foresees that the war will last for six years. In taking Shona's name, Marjorie inherits a battered suitcase containing Shona's only possessions--a few shabby clothes and an oil painting of a large Victorian house, Shona's only clue to her past. Marjorie also has charge of Anna, a backward child from the orphanage who was assigned to Shona's care.Marjorie and Anna are billeted with two kindly, but eccentric, middle-aged sisters. Despite the hardship of war, Marjorie’s life as Shona is happy in ways it never was before. But as she makes plans for the future, the question of who she really is haunts her, and at the war’s end she knows she must search for the real Shona and settle the question of her identity.

With the turn of a glowing key, four children are transported back to the fifteenth century when they open the door to an ancient Scottish tower. Back then border raiding was a way of life and Andrew witnesses the battle to retake Roxburgh Castle from the English. On a second visit, hoping to retrieve Ollie, the youngest child, they find themselves in the distant future.

In this compelling time-slip novel. a girl and a boy from the twentieth century are carried through the Circle of Time to the year 2179. There they are caught up in the courageous struggle of a peace-loving people trying to protect their simple and humane way of life from the assaults of a barbaric mechanized society who would conquer and enslave them. Through rich layers of time and meaning, Anderson has woven an intriguing tale in which the present becomes the past and the future is now.

On Elizabeth’s first discovery of the tumbledown cottages at the far edge of the woods, all she saw was the rotting thatched roof and crumbling walls. Inside the air was dank and the wallpaper was stained with damp and mold. But on the next visit, escaping from the misunderstandings and misery of being the new girl at the village school, everything has changed. The decayed thatch has been replaced by new straw, the crumbling walls are intact and smoke curls from the chimneys. Most confusing of all is the girl in the faded ragged dress who is feeding the chickens.Could the girl be a ghost child who has come back to haunt the woods where she once played? Somehow Elizabeth can’t believe in a ghost who feeds chickens. Or in ghost chickens, for that matter. There must be another answer, but it is just on the edge of her understanding. Elizabeth has to see her again. On their next meeting, when the ghost child, Ann, reaches out and touches Elizabeth something happens that Elizabeth can never understand, though it was to happen again and again. They simply become one person and only Ann walks through the door of the cottage, yet Elizabeth is still there, thinking and looking and feeling as Ann did.As Elizabeth moves back and forth between the two worlds, the past becomes a vivid reality. She enjoys being part of a lively family of six children compared to her own only child status, but she soon realizes that her trouble fitting in at school is nothing compared to not having the chance to go to school at all. And there’s also the fear that she may not find her way back to the present.In 1972 our family spent a sabbatical year in a small village in Dorset living in an old thatched cottage called Random Cottage. It was the sort of place that begged for a story! One afternoon, when we were exploring the nearby woods, we came on two derelict cottages in a small clearing. On a second visit to the cottages, we were a bit unsettled to see a man tending a beehive that we were sure hadn’t been there on our previous visit. We exchanged a few pleasantries about the weather and went on our way.Back in Oregon, with the memory of this incident still in my mind, I began to write about a girl living in Random Cottage, who finds the ramshackle houses in the woods. On a second visit, instead of seeing a man tending bees, the girl encounters someone of her own age -- a girl who had once lived in one of the cottages. While we were in Dorset, the village school had a big celebration marking its hundredth year. Many of the nearby towns and villages were celebrating their centennial that same year. It was more than a coincidence. A hundred years earlier, an Education Act mandated that all children should learn to read and write. I sent Elizabeth, who was having a hard time fitting in at the village school, back to a past where a new school was being built, but she would to go.

In a spur-of-the-moment decision made in the chaos of a crowded Edinburgh railway station at the start of World War II, two young evacuees trade places, names and lives. Shy, wealthy Marjorie Malcolm Scott, on her way to stay with relatives in Canada, becomes Shona McInnes, an adventurous orphan bound for a small town in the south of Scotland. Neither girl foresees that the war will last for six years.In taking Shona's name, Marjorie inherits a battered suitcase containing Shona's only possessions--a few shabby clothes and an oil painting of a large Victorian house, Shona's only clue to her past. Marjorie also has charge of Anna, a backward child from the orphanage who was assigned to Shona's care.Marjorie and Anna are billeted with two kindly, but eccentric, middle-aged sisters. Despite the hardship of war, Marjorie’s life as Shona is happy in ways it never was before. But as she makes plans for the future, the question of who she really is haunts her, and at the war’s end she knows she must search for the real Shona and settle the question of her identity.

Elspeth MacDonald would remember her mother’s dying words. Take care of wee Rob. You mustn’t let them take him away. You are to stay together. . . .Do you understand. . . ? Elspeth hadn’t understood at the time—who would want to take her brother away? But the meaning of her mother’s plea became frightening clear when Elspeth learned what their lives as orphans in Scotland would be. A place would be found for her to work as a maid; her little brother would be put in an orphanage.“We are to stay together,” Elspeth told the unhearing social worker. And they would stay together as she had promised her mother. They would run away. . . . And so on the last day of March in the year 1903, thirteen-year-old Elspeth and four-year-old Robbie MacDonald joined the Barr Colonists on a ship leaving Liverpool, England. Hidden in the overcrowded ship heading for Canada, they became children of the shadows—the Shadow Bairns.In a pamphlet promoting the venture, Isaac Moses Barr, warned the would-be settlers: There are difficulties and drawbacks to be encountered; but for the brave man obstacles are something to be overcome and steppingstones to victory and success. . . . Hard work and plenty of it lies before you, more or less of hardship, and not seldom privations. . . . If you are afraid, stay at home—don’t come to Canada. Elspeth and Robbie would face their share of difficulties and drawback as they journeyed alone across the ocean and the vast frontier wilderness to find their own place in a new world. But these children of the shadows were determined and resilient.

How can we organize and name all of the different animals and plants in the world? Many had tried before, but Carl Linnaeus came up with a system that we still use today. This Swedish scientist from over 300 years ago is known as the father of classification. Linnaeuss system gave each plant or animal just two names. For example, the scientific term for human beings is Homo sapiens. In Latin, Homo means "man" and sapiens means "wise."