Books in Sunburst Books series

Life is secure and peaceful for young Prosper, second son of Gerontius, until the day Prince Gorthyn arrives with his hunting party. Prosper's unusual daring in the hunt catches the prince's attention, and he promises to make Prosper his shield-bearer when he comes of age. Two years later, three hundred princes are summoned to the king's fortress at Dyn Eidin, where they will prepare to fight the Saxon forces which are gaining strength in the east. Prosper, with Conn, his bondservant, leaves his father's lands to join Gorthyn in the rigorous training for battle. With the coming of spring, word reaches the Three Hundred Companions that the Saxon leader has taken yet another kingdom. They set out at once for the Saxon stronghold of Catraeth, where Prosper must face the greatest challenges of his life.Adventure and heroism against impossible odds create a moving, robust tale set in Britain in the eighth century and based on actual events.

They eat sand and gravel for breakfast and a stew of sticks and stones for dinner. No one says "please" or "thank you." Instead, they kick and yell and punch and shove. Then one day everything changes, when Baby Brute happens upon "a little wandering lost good feeling in a field of daisies." When he brings it home in his pocket, nothing is ever the same for the Little Brute Family.

When it was discovered that thirteen-year-old Tora has leprosy, she is sent from her family's remote mountain farm to the leprosy hospital in the bustling port of Bergen. In early-nineteenth-century Norway, lepers are quarantined in this hospital and no longer considered among the living. But even as her body gradually fails her, Tora's new life blossoms. She finds strength through helping her fellow patients, both young and old, and she decides to see for herself what the Bible says about leprosy. To do so, she must make friends with the young and angry Mistress Dybendal, the only person at the hospital who can teach her to read.As she did in The Abduction (an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year), Mette Newth brings another era vividly to life and demonstrates the timeless nature of the search for identity and tolerance.

Duffy and the Devil was a popular play in Cornwall in the nineteenth century, performed at the Christmas season by groups of young people who went from house to house. The Zemachs have interpreted the folk tale which the play dramatized, recognizable as a version of the widespread Rumpelstiltskin story. Its main themes are familiar, but the character and details of this picture book are entirely Cornish, as robust and distinctive as the higgledy-piggledy, cliff-hanging villages that dot England's southwestern coast from Penzance to Land's End.The language spoken by the Christmas players was a rich mixture of local English dialect and Old Cornish (similar to Welsh and Gaelic), and something of this flavor is preserved in Harve Zemach's retelling. Margot Zemach's pen-and-wash illustrations combine a refined sense of comedy with telling observation of character, felicitous drawing with decorative richness, to a degree that surpasses her own past accomplishments.Duffy and the Devil is a 1973 New York Times Book Review Notable Children's Book of the Year and Outstanding Book of the Year, a 1974 National Book Award Finalist for Children's Books, and the winner of the 1974 Caldecott Medal.

Every spring, the geese touch down on the pond in a honking, flapping celebration. But this year, one of them is different. As it stands on one leg--shunned by the other geese, unable to search for food, to swim, or even to fly away--a young girl wonders: how can a goose with one foot survive? "A heartwarming story with a tender message about accepting others in spite of their differences and helping those who are less able." --Starred, School Library Journal "Best's simple prose is rhythmic and beautiful . . . Every child who has nursed an injured creature will recognize the bond, the distance, and the hope. " --Starred, Booklist

Doomed to - or blessed with - eternal life after drinking from a magic spring, the Tuck family wanders about trying to live as inconspicuously and comfortably as they can. When ten-year-old Winnie Foster stumbles on their secret, the Tucks take her home and explain why living forever at one age is less a blessing that it might seem. Complications arise when Winnie is followed by a starnger who wants to market the spring water for a fortune Other books by the renowned children's author Natalie Babbitt include Goody Hall, Kneeknock Rise, The Devil's Storybook, The Devil's Other Storybook, The Eyes of the Amaryllis, and The Search for Delicious. An American Library Association Notable Children's BookWinner of a Christopher Award for Books for Young ReadersDoomed to—or blessed with—eternal life after drinking from a magic spring, the Tuck family wanders about trying to live as inconspicuously and comfortably as they can.But when ten-year-old Winnie Foster stumbles upon their secret, the Tucks must take her home and explain why living forever at one age is less a blessing that it might seem. Much trouble arises when Winnie is followed by a stranger who wants to market the spring water for a fortune.This short novel, so moving and artfully composed, first appeared a generation ago. It has since become a young adult classic. "Rarely does one find a book with such prose. Flawless in both style and structure, it is rich in imagery and punctuated with light fillips of humor. The author manipulates her plot deftly, dealing with six main characters brought together because of a spring whose waters can bestow everlasting life . . . Underlying the drama is the dilemma of the age-old desire for perpetual youth."—The Horn Book