Novel, Orca, 2002, 154 Pages

One minute she was not there and the next she had dashed in among them, her dangling leash sailing through the air after her. Her silky coat rippled in the breeze and she had incredible ears, black and tall, shaped like butterfly wings. Her feathery tail curled up over her back one minute, streamed out behind her the next and, a second later, tucked itself out of sight between her legs.

To Dickon, that tail shouted, "I want to be friends I'm running away I'm afraid."

He understood the little dog completely. He, too, had felt confused and desperate.

Dickon wasn't happy in his old home or his old school. He hopes that in his new neighborhood he will meet children who never knew his old, hyper self, who will like him for who he is now. And he hopes for a dog of his own. Dickon's mother calls him Birdie. She feeds him milk from a teddy bear mug. She worries if he's out of her sight for a moment and she knows how filthy and vicious dogs can be. Dickon is delighted to discover that the Humane Society is right on the other side of the fence behind the new house, but only by disobeying his mother will he ever get close to a real dog.

Novel, Scholastic, 2007, 239 Pages 

Ten-year-old Min has had a long history of foster care since being abandoned in a public washroom at age three. When Min is dumped by her latest foster mother just before Christmas, Jess Hart, a former Children’s Aid doctor who knows min and sees past her hardened shell, decides to take her home for a couple of weeks to see how the two of them get along. Jess has long had thoughts of a becoming Min’s official foster mother, or even adopting her. On their way to find a Christmas tree, Min finds a young dog that’s near death and brings it home. As the dog’s timidness and distrust of people begins to lesson, Min realizes how much she has herself been “walling” people out. Min starts to open up, makes some new friends and event stands up to her old nemesis, the bullying and taunting Laird. This is a story of and abandoned dog helping and abandoned girl open her heart and let in a new family. Jean Little’s incredible gift for portraying emotion and creating real people shines in this touching novel.

Novel, Penguin, 1986, 123 Pages 

Ben is apprehensive about staying over at his aunt roses house while his parents are away. but with the promise of a big surprise, ben reluctantly agrees to at least give it a try. only, when the surprise arrives, it is not what ben expects at all. At the door is a labrador retriever named gully. the only problem is that ben is afraid of dogs. Dogs jump at people, bite people, and even kill people! And even though gully seems friendly, ben decides he will never be friends with a dog. but when ben finds himself alone with gully in a scary situation, he starts to rethink his fear. perhaps he will be able to survive the whole weekend at Aunt roses with gully running around after all.

Novel, Orca, 2005, 144 Pages

Seeing-eye pup, Shakespeare, conquered many fears in Rescue Pup. Now he is back, about to be matched up with a blind boy, ready to begin his working life. Tim is enraged by his blindness and wants nothing to do with a guide dog. But he is no match for Shakespeare.

Jean Little is one of Canada's most beloved writers for children. She is also blind and currently living with her third Seeing Eye dog. Three times, she has traveled to the Seeing Eye headquarters in New Jersey to train with a dog, first Zephyr, then Ritz and now Pippa. For years she has thought about writing a book about the training of a Seeing Eye dog. Now she has done it, but Shakespeare is not just any dog.

Forward, Shakespeare! is the second of two books in a series.
Book one is Rescue Pup.

Novel, Harper, 1972, 201 Pages 

Anna has always been the clumsy one in the family. Somehow she can never do anything right! She bumps into tables, and she can't read the blackboard at her school. Her perfect brothers and sisters call her "Awkward Anna." When Papa announces that the family is moving from Germany to Canada, Anna's heart sinks. How can she learn English when she can't even read German? Nothing could be worse than this!

But when the Soldens arrive in Canada, Anna learns that there is a reason for her clumsiness. And suddenly, wonderfully, her whole world begins to change.

Novel, Penguin, 1995, 207 Pages

Based on the Jean's mother’s childhood. Winner of the IODE Violet Downie Award.

For as long as she can remember, Flora Gauld has lived in Taiwan, but now her family is going home to Canada, a place she has only seen in pictures.

At first she’s a bit intimidated by all the cousins she meets in Kippen, Ontario, but after a while she begins to feel at home. Then her parents explain that they must go back to Taiwan, where they work as missionaries. Flora will be left behind with her aunt and uncle, whom she hardly knows, in yet another town. She is given the special responsibility of looking after her younger brother, William—but who will look after her?

With time, Flora is buoyed by the love of her Aunt Jen and her "adopted" family, but then the Great War begins, and Flora’s world is turned upside down.

Based on the true story of Jean Little’s remarkable mother, His Banner over Me brings a distant time and place to vivid life.

Novel, Little Brown & Co, 1965, 157 Pages, Out of print

After the death of her twin brother, a girl learns to look to the future in this gentle, absorbing story.

Novel, HarperCollins, 1971, 167 Pages

By no means a stereotype, Kate Bloomfield is a confident, sensitive, tomboy who loves to write poetry. Even her Jewish father and non-Jewish mother leave her more confused about her heritage than ever. It’s only when she discovers that arch-enemy Sheila Rosenthal is Jewish that Kate explore her own family background. As Jean Little leads her protagonist to an old family feud in Kate, she discovers a secret that almost costs Kate her best friend.

Novel,  Stoddart,  1977, 262 Pages

Winner of The Canada Council Children’s Book Award

As the world around her braces itself for World War II, a young Canadian girl with impaired vision prepares to begin public high school.

Novel, Harper & Row, 1970, 258 Pages

When Emily's parents move to an eighteen-room house so that her four unpredictable cousins can live with them, life for Emily, an only child, is never again the same.

Novel,  Penguin, 1985, 824 Pages 

When Lucy's family moves to a new town just before school begins, Lucy is lonely and worried about whether she'll make new friends. Then she meets a little dog that is friendly and may—or may not—be a stray. Her parents let her keep him until they find the owner, but Lucy, who calls him Trouble, begins to hope the owner is never found.

Novel,  Penguin, 1984, 244 Pages

Winner of the Canadian Library Association Children’s Book Award and the Ruth Schwartz Award

Jeremy is not having a good summer. His best friends have moved away, and he has to stay at the cottage with only his little sister and Aunt Margery. His parents have remained in the city so his father can have an operation.

When Jeremy finally sees him again, he finds out that his father has cancer and isn't going to get better. Suddenly, everything is different. Then Jeremy finds an unlikely friend in Tess, who knows what it's like to lose someone. As his friendship with her grows, through good times and bad, Jeremy discovers that his father has left him something that will live forever ...

Novel,  Penguin, 1962, 213 Pages

Born with cerebral palsy, nine-year-old Sally has spent the past five years at a special rehabilitation school. Her dreams of actually living with her family rather than just visiting them finally come true when a new school opens near her family’s home. Adjusting to her new life and the typical challenges of starting a new school and meeting new friends are heightened for Sally, through the unique problems of being handicapped in the world. Mine for Keeps is a heartfelt and inspirational story about overcoming fears and considering other people’s points of view. A compelling read, this popular children’s story imparts valuable lifelong lessons about the nature of change, friendship and family.

Novel, Penguin, 1969, 176 Pages 

Janie Chisholm has a problem--she doesn't mean to tell lies, but she can't seem to stop herself from exaggerating the truth. When Janie befriends Lisa, a new girl at school who is also in the habit of telling lies, she gets into more trouble than ever before.

Novel,  Orca, 2004,  101 Pages 

Shakespeare wriggled joyously and reared up to lick Tessa's chin. He expected even this girl to love him on sight. Everybody always had. But Tessa was not everybody. She parted her knees and let him slither to the floor.

Shakespeare is a Seeing Eye puppy. But before the time comes for him to train with a blind person, he must spend six months with a girl who has never learned to love. He does all he can to teach her, but the job places him in some dangerous situations and by the end of the story he has earned the title Rescue Pup.

Jean Little is one of Canada's most beloved writers for children. She is also blind and currently living with her third Seeing Eye dog. Three times she has traveled to the Seeing Eye headquarters in New Jersey to train with a dog, first Zephyr, then Ritz and now Pippa. For years she has thought about writing a book about the training of a guide dog puppy. Now she has done it, but Shakespeare is not just any dog. Jean is also the author of Birdie for Now (Orca, 2002) and I Gave My Mom a Castle (Orca, 2003).

Rescue Pup is the first of two books in a series.
Book two is Forward, Shakespeare!

Novel, Penguin, 2005, 180 Pages

On a flight from Vancouver to Toronto, two girls meet, forming an unlikely friendship. Tall, athletic Samantha is going to spend the summer with a family friend while her father is in South America. Alexis, a shy girl who likes books, is being sent to a horse farm to learn how to ride while her mother and stepfather are travelling in Australia.

By the time their flight lands in Toronto, the girls have hatched their plots. They’re going to trade places for the summer. After all, the people they’re going to visit have never met them, and their parents are far away and hard to contact. But will they manage to pull it off? For how long? And with what consequences?

Novel, Penguin, 1966, 182 Pages

This sequel to Mine for Keeps focuses on Meg, the youngest child in the Copeland family. When the novel opens, Meg has been told that she'll have her own room beginning on her birthday, in part because she is struggling in school and her parents think it might help to have her own desk. This plan falls apart when the marriage of Meg's aunt leads to Grandma coming to live with the Copeland family. Meg wrestles with her disappointment and her hostility to her grandmother, along with her problems at school, where she has enough trouble concentrating that her teacher warns that she may not be promoted. But Grandma turns out to be more complicated than Meg realizes, and with help from Sal and Elsje, Meg makes some progress at school.

Novel,  Penguin,  1975, 275 Pages

At a beach cottage, two sets of sisters who have never met before must spend a few days together without their parents. It looks as if it's going to be the longest holiday ever, until Martha discovers something about Christine that changes everything.

Novel, Little Brown & Co, 1968, 176 Pages

Novel,  Penguin, 1997, 124 Pages

It seems young Elspet Mary has known nothing but loss. First her mother died, then her father, leaving her in the care if her aunt and uncle. With them, she has moved from one lonely Scottish village to another, and now, just as she is beginning to feel at home, she is being torn away again, to move to rugged Upper Canada. What awaits her in the strange new land? What will become of her grandmother, left behind in Scotland, and her beloved cat? Will she finally find a place to call home, a place where she belongs? Told in Jean Little’s inimitable voice, this moving coming-of-age story explores loss, loneliness and love-and the universal search for a place to belong.

Novel, Orca, 2004, 64 Pages

Nell makes two wishes on her birthday, but the next day they show little sign of coming true. Everyone in her household is busy and wants her out from underfoot and no one is willing to help her find her lost cat. In the end she finds more than a cat and she makes her own wishes come true with the help of a row of tall, bright, smiling sunflowers.

Jean Little, one of Canada's most beloved authors, got the idea for The Birthday Girl from her grandma's first cousin. The Birthday Girl is her third book for Orca, following Birdie for Now and I Gave My Mom a Castle.

Three novels reprinted together, Penguin, 2001, 358 Pages

Introducing an omnibus of three classic Jean Little novels for six to nine year olds, gathered together in a beautiful volume. The perfect way to introduce young readers to the work of Jean Little, it also makes a wonderful gift for children who know and love her work already. The three books included are:

Different Dragons: Ben isn’t sure he wants to visit his Aunt Rose while his parents and older brother are away. He doesn’t like admitting it, but he’s afraid of a lot of things - dogs, thunderstorms, new places, new people. Aunt Rose turns out to be much nicer than Ben expected; but then she presents him with a birthday gift that terrifies him - a big Labrador retriever named Gully. How can Ben tell her he’s afraid even to be in the same room with Gully? And how can he tell Hana, his new friend?

One To Grow On: Janie Chisholm doesn’t really mean to tell lies. It’s just that sometimes her stories get out of control -- and Janie gets into trouble. No one in her family takes her seriously, and she’s not well liked at school. Then Janie meets Lisa, a pretty girl whose parents are celebrities. Lisa wants to be Janie’s friend, but it turns out that she tells lies, too -- and her lies hurt.

Lost and Found: When Lucy’s family moves to a new town just before school begins, Lucy is lonely and worried about whether she’ll make new friends. Then she meets a little dog that is friendly and may - or may not - be a stray. Her parents let her keep him until they find the owner, but Lucy, who calls him Trouble, begins to hope he has no owner. When she meets Nan, a girl who likes to play detective, they set out together to find Trouble’s owners.

Novel, Penguin, 2000, 227 Pages

Mr. Christie's Book Award
CLA Book of the Year for Children: Finalist
Violet Downey Book Award: Shortlist

Ten-year-old Willow lives with her four-year-old brother Twig. They are in the care of their mother, since neither of their fathers have stuck around to raise them. When their mother breaks her parole and takes off, they are left in the care of Maisie. Unfortunately Maisie suddenly dies, and the two find themselves alone in the city.

With no one left to look after them in the city where they were born, they are sent to live with Willow's grandmother, a writer, in her house called Stonecrop. From the rough streets of Vancouver, the children must adjust to a rural setting in Ontario, and the ways of their grandmother.

Both heartbreakingly real and honestly inspiring, the story of Willow and Twig reverberates with the realities of growing up alone and unwanted, learning to be proud of who you are and having the courage to find out where it is that you truly belong.