McKenzie, Ellen Kindt

When Ritchie's younger sister Rosie gets very sick after their mother suddenly goes away, Rosie begins to receive letters from a lonely troll, and these letters help Ritchie cope with his mother's absence, his father's seeming indifference, and the fifth-grade class bully.

When their mother sends Keld and Elylden away, she gives each a special gift to help them on their journey, and these gifts of power and prophecy aid them when they encounter the evil witch Edderis.

An abandoned child in the desert is found and taught by a holy man whose teachings he mischievously resists, only to regret it years later when he needs that wisdom as he finds himself in a battle of wits with a fearsome villain.

A good-hearted tinker and a curious young princess show a narrow-minded king that there are more important things in the world than his treasure.

Six-year-old John, emotionally withdrawn and resistant to traditional teaching methods, experiences ridicule and punishment at his one-room schoolhouse, until an old retired teacher reaches out from her blindness to share with him the world of reading and writing.

When Ritchie's younger sister Rosie gets very sick after their mother suddenly goes away, Rosie begins to receive letters from a lonely troll, and these letters help Ritchie cope with his mother's absence, his father's seeming indifference, and the fifth-grade class bully.

An old woman builds a house with twenty-six rooms and keeps all her possessions in alphabetical order, but she still can't find anything.