Sixteen-year-old Sadie Rose hasn’t said a word in eleven years—ever since the day she was found lying in a snowbank during a howling storm. Like her voice, her memories of her mother and what happened that night were frozen.

Set during the roaring 1920s in the beautiful, wild area on Rainy Lake where Minnesota meets Canada, Frozen tells the remarkable story of Sadie Rose, whose mother died under strange circumstances the same night that Sadie Rose was found, unable to speak, in a snowbank. Sadie Rose doesn’t know her last name and has only fleeting memories of her mother—and the conflicting knowledge that her mother had worked in a brothel. Taken in as a foster child by a corrupt senator, Sadie Rose spends every summer along the shores of Rainy Lake, where her silence is both a prison and a sanctuary.

One day, Sadie Rose stumbles on a half dozen faded, scandalous photographs—pictures, she realizes, of her mother. They release a flood of puzzling memories, and these wisps of the past send her at last into the heart of her own life’s great mystery: who was her mother, and how did she die? Why did her mother work in a brothel—did she have a choice? What really happened that night when a five-year-old girl was found shivering in a snowbank, her voice and identity abruptly shattered?

Sadie Rose’s search for her personal truth is laid against a swirling historical drama—a time of prohibition and women winning the right to vote, political corruption, and a fevered fight over the area’s wilderness between a charismatic, unyielding, powerful industrialist and a quiet man battling to save the wide, wild forests and waters of northernmost Minnesota. Frozen is a suspenseful, moving testimonial to the haves and the have-nots, to the power of family and memory, and to the extraordinary strength of a young woman who has lost her voice in nearly every way—but is utterly determined to find it again.

Lyrical words and elegant woodcuts capture the quiet beauty of the forest as day fades to night and autumn gives way to the North Woods winter

While we are tucked in, snug in warm blankets as we listen to bedtime stories, the woods around us whisper another tale. As the golden leaves waft through the lengthening shadows, the loon sings one last lullaby, the whirring hummingbird takes one last sip, the industrious beaver saws one last branch for her lodge. Here, in enchanting words and woodcuts, is the magic of night falling and winter approaching in the North Woods. Hush Hush, Forest peers through twilight’s window at the raccoon preening, the doe and fawn bedding down, the last bat of the season flitting away. The owl surveys, the rabbit scurries, the bear hunkers, readying her den.

Marking the rhythm between the falling leaf and the falling snowflake, picturing the rituals of creatures big and small as they prepare for the long winter’s sleep, this charming book captures a time of surpassing wonder for readers of all ages—and bids everyone in the hushed forest a peaceful good night.

Walking on thin ice: on Rainy Lake, in the northern reaches of Minnesota, it’s more than a saying. And for Owen Jensen, nineteen and suddenly responsible for keeping his mother and five brothers alive, the ice is thin indeed.

Ice-Out returns to the frigid and often brutal Prohibition-era borderland of Mary Casanova’s beloved novel Frozen, and to the characters who made it a favorite among readers of all ages. Owen, smitten with Frozen’s Sadie Rose, is struggling to make something of himself at a time when no one seems to hold the moral high ground. Bootlegging is rife, corruption is rampant, and lumber barons run roughshod over the people and the land. As hard as things seem when his father dies, stranding his impoverished family, they get considerably tougher—and more complicated—when Owen gets caught up in the suspicious deaths of a sheriff and deputy on the border.

Inspired by real events in early 1920s Minnesota, and by Mary Casanova’s own family history, Ice-Out is at once a story of young romance against terrible odds and true grit on the border between license and responsibility, rich and poor, and right and wrong in early twentieth-century America.

Twelve-year-old Seth wants to prove to his stepfather, the game warden, that he is responsible enough to use his shotgun on his own. Without permission, he takes matters into his own hands and shoots his first rabbit. He is worried about what his father will say when he finds out—and Seth himself is unsure of how he feels about it—but before he can confess, Seth’s life is turned upside down.

In the woods near his house, he sees poachers slaughter a moose cow and injure her calf. Rather than tell his stepfather about the incident, Seth tries to save the calf, but the poachers know who he is and threaten his family. Can he rescue the moose and bring the poachers to justice? He has to try.

Based on actual events from 1989 in International Falls, Minnesota, Riot tells the story of sixth-grader Bryan, whose family becomes stressed when nonunion labor “rats” are hired by the local paper mill, leaving his father, a union worker, angry and out of a job. Tension erupts into daily fights at school and nightly acts of vandalism with no solution in sight. Already torn between his parents’ opposing viewpoints on how to handle the escalating situation, Bryan’s growing feelings for the daughter of a nonunion worker only complicate matters.

Bryan tries to understand the turmoil affecting his home and his town, but it is becomes harder and harder to separate his friends from his enemies. And when he witnesses a violent act that implicates his father, he must wrestle with family loyalty and telling the truth.

Wake up, little one, a soft voice beckons, the world around you is already stirring. As Wake Up, Island gently rouses the sleepy child, it summons a world of nature coming to life on a summer island in the magical North Woods. Sunlit fingers touch the shores, pine trees stretch their limbs, and lichen warms on ancient rock. Doe and fawn rise from their grass bed and pearls of dew bead a spider’s finely woven web. Mallards skim the water’s surface. Ravens perch and gargle greetings, chickadees call dee, dee, dee, and a heron swoops—minnows flee! The moose and her calf wade, munching on plants. The red squirrel chatters. The black bear lazily scratches her back against a tree.

Conjuring the morning life around a cabin fragrant with berry pancakes, this timeless book wakens the child in every reader to the wonders of nature that greet every new day in the charmed world of a northern woodland island.

In this sequel to Mary Casanova’s exciting Moose Tracks, twelve-year-old Seth is back for a new adventure. A debate is brewing in his northern Minnesota town over the growing wolf packs and the programs that are in place for their protection. Although he fears them, Seth can’t help but want to see the wolves thrive.

Seth’s feelings put him at odds with those who want to hunt wolves again—including his best friend Matt, whose family believes that the wolf population poses a serious threat to their livestock. Torn between his love of animals and his best friend, Seth is unsure of what to do. When Matt commits a horrible act of violence, Seth angrily abandons him in the woods, unaware that a blizzard is on the way. Now Seth must try to rescue his friend—but will he be able to save their friendship?