Magical stories set in alternate universes... tales of curses and gifts of healing... a wizard who has lost his powers... and a princess, a troll, and a teenage girl are featured in this diverse collection from Newbery Medalist Robin McKinley In "The Healer," Lily was born mute, but she has so great a natural gift for healing that the local midwife and healer takes her as an apprentice. One evening, riding home, she meets a stranger on the road who...

Harry, bored with her sheltered life in the remote orange-growing colony of Daria, discovers magic in herself when she is kidnapped by a native king with mysterious powers.

The story of Princess Lissar, who flees her father's wrath and is granted an unexpected new life Princess Lissla Lissar is the only child of the king and his queen, who was the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms. Everyone loved the splendid king and his matchless queen so much that no one had any attention to spare for the princess, who grew up in seclusion, listening to the tales her nursemaid told about her magnificent parents. But the queen...

The author retells the adventures of Robin Hood and his band of outlaws who live in Sherwood Forest in twelfth-century England.

Because of a thousand-year-old alliance between humans and pegasi, Princess Sylvi is ceremonially bound to Ebon, her own pegasus, on her twelfth birthday, but the closeness of their bond becomes a threat to the status quo and possibly to the safety of their two nations.

A beekeeper by trade, Mirasol's life changes completely when she is named the new Chalice, the most important advisor to the new Master, a former priest of fire.

"Magic is illegal in Newworld, so Maggie struggles to explain the strange shadows--that only she can see--that seem to accompany her new stepfather everywhere"--