Original Booklists: Set in Maine, Juvenile and YA Fiction

Juvenile and Young Adult Fiction Set in Maine

The books listed here are set completely or partially in real or imaginary places in the state of Maine. They're in alphabetical order by author, with links to author entries on the Maine Writers Index at the Maine State Library, if applicable (not all books set in Maine are written by Maine authors). To suggest a book for the list, please contact me.

Many thanks to Dennis Lien and Allen J. Hubin for help. Special thanks to Bill Bauer for access to his well-annotated finding list of books with Maine settings; this list would be much smaller without his help.

Juvenile and YA Fiction Index

Click on letter of author's last name to go straight to that section:
A-B / C-D / E-F / G-H / I-J-K / L-M / N-O-P / Q-R-S / T-U-V / W-X-Y-Z

Adult Fiction Index

A-B

ABBOTT, Jacob

Marco Paul's Adventures in Pursuit of Knowledge: Forests of Maine (1843): (RL: Juvenile) Other adventures in the series are in New York City, on the Erie Canal, Vermont, Boston, and at the Springfield Armory (Mass.). 191 pp.

ABBOTT, Jane Ludlow

Aprilly (1921): (RL: Juvenile) A girl desperate to leave Boston buys a train ticket to Blossom, Maine, where she finds both independence and romance.

ADSHEAD, Gladys Lucy

Casco (1943; ill. Else Bostleman): (RL: Juvenile) The story of the first year of life of the little seal, Casco. Set Maine. 63 pp.

AGELL, Charlotte

Welcome Home or Someplace Like It (2003): (RL: Young Adult) Spunky 13-year-old Aggie Wing keeps a journal, recording everything about her first summer living in Ludwig, a fictional village on the coast of Maine.

ALLEN, Willis Boyd

Pine Cones (1886): (RL: Juvenile) 19th-century juvenile adventure stories. 224 pp.
Kelp: A Story of the Isles of Shoals (1888): (Juvenile?) Cover title reads 'The Pine Cone Stories.' 242 pp.

ALVORD, Douglas

Sarah's Boat: A Young Girl Learns the Art of Sailing (1994): (RL: ages 8-12) Detailed drawings, helpful hints, 1-2-3 step guides, glossary, and points of sailing incorporated in the story of an 11-year-old girl learning to sail.

ANDERSON, F. Whitehouse

Bushed (1954): (RL: Young adult) An adventure of boy on a hunting trip who became lost.

ANDLER, Kenneth

The Stolen Spruce: A Mystery Adventure In The Maine Woods (1952): (RL: Young adult) Mystery with Maine setting. 168 pp.
The Signal Net (1953): (RL: Young adult) 183 pp.

ANNIXTER, Paul (aka Howard A. Struzel)

Swiftwater (1950): (RL: older juvenile). Novel that captures the wonder of wild places and is warm with humanity. In an isolated village in the north woods of Maine, eccentric Cam Calloway is the last of the trappers. The hostility of the community toward his profession intensifies the rare and lovely relationship Cam has with his son. Basis for 1965 Walt Disney film ('Those Calloways'). 256 pp.

APPLEGATE, Katherine

Her 'Making Out' series (28 books; aka 'Boyfriends/Girlfriends') is about a group of teenagers who live on Chatham Island, off the coast of Maine. Similar to 'Dawson's Creek' (TV show). All are suitable for young adults (12+). Published 1994-1999.

Zoey Fools Around: Two years after Lucas is convicted of vehicular homicide in the car accident that killed Zoey's boyfriend Wade McRoyan, Lucas returns to Chatham Island, Maine and Zoey falls for him.
Jake Finds Out
Nina Won't Tell
Ben's Move
Claire Gets Caught
What Zoey Saw: Zoey used to think her family was perfect, that their parents were really in love. But what she saw changed all that.
Lucas Gets Hurt
Aisha Goes Wild
Zoey Plays Games: Thanksgiving vacation on Chatham Island, Maine, and the Passmore and Geiger families are tested when they welcome a new sibling, a possible new boyfriend, and a father's new girlfriend to the table.
Nina Shapes Up
Ben Takes A Chance
Claire Can't Lose
Don't Tell Zoey
Aaron Lets Go
Who Loves Kate?
Lara Gets Even: Lara gets even with Kate because she can't bear to watch Kate stealing Jake.
Two-Timing Aisha
Zoey Speaks Out : Zoey speaks out when she dares to tell Jake the truth about his ruined evening with Kate.
Kate Finds Love
Never Trust Lara
Trouble with Aaron
Always Loving Zoey
Lara Gets Lucky
Now Zoey's Alone
Don't Forget Lara
Zoey's Broken Heart : The disaster that killed Lara, destroyed Zoey's home, and injured her parents has left Zoey devastated.
Falling for Claire
Zoey Comes Home

ARENSTAM, Peter

Nicholas: A Maine Tale (2008): (RL: Ages 7-12) A small field mouse comes to Maine in search of his cousin and a precious family journal.

AUSTIN, Heather

Visiting Aunt Sylvia's: A Maine Adventure (2002): (RL: Ages 4-8) Heather and her brother Toby visit Aunt Sylvia in western Maine, gathering stones, making leaf mobiles, hanging peanut butter pine cones for chickadees, picking fiddleheads, etc.
Boatyard Ducklings (2008): (RL: Ages 4-8) Two young girls spending their summer along costal Maine find that a wild mallard has laid a nest of eggs in their rowboat.

AZEPERAK, Will

The Proving (2003): (RL: Ages 10+). First in science fiction series The Zambinos of Blue Hill. A story of high adventure set in the year 2063 in the town of Blue Hill, Maine. 290 pp. (illus.) Available online through iUniverse.

BABICKI, Mo

Island Fisherman: A Lobster Village Story (1999): (RL: Ages 4-8) Ill. Glenn Chadbourne. Danny learns about lobstering and his grandfather learns that wire traps catch more lobsters than wooden traps.

BAKER, Marybeth

The Adventures of Maynard...A Maine Moose (1985): (RL: ages 4-8) Maynard always thought that he was too big, too noisy, and clumsy, but all his forest friends knew that he was really kind, and gentle and very special. This is the story of Maynard, and how he came to be honored as the state animal of his native Maine.
The Adventures of Maynard and the Loon (1985): (RL: ages 4-8) 44 pp.
Maynard's Allagash Friends (1989): (RL: ages 4-8)

BALDWIN, Anne Norris

The Sometimes Island (1969): (RL: Juvenile) When a young boy finds out that Pine Island in Maine is actually a peninsula that you can sometimes walk out to and not always an island, he must explore it.

BALDWIN, Sidney

Ben of Old Monhegan: A Boy's Life (1933): (RL: Young adult) Story of a boy's life among the fishermen.
Marjorie of Monhegan (1950): (RL: Juvenile) Story of a city child who spends a year on the island of Monhegan off the coast of Maine. 300 pp.

BARTHOLOMEW, Sandra

Megan In Maine: Summer Surprises (1995/1999): (RL: ages 9-12) In a guesthouse on the Maine coast, Megan Ropitsky deals with feelings of jealousy towards some of her friends. An autistic visitor gives Megan a chance to do something unselfish, for which she is rewarded. Independence Day setting. 49 pp.

BARTLETT, Sharon Aune

An Adventure with Grandfather in the Maine Woods (2002, illus. Judith Fallmann): (RL: Juvenile) A 7-year-old New York City boy reluctantly visits his grandfather in rural Maine. Once there, he realizes there's a lot to see and do in the wintry woods -- and begins to build a deep bond with his grandfather.

BARTLETT, Susan

Seal Island School (1999, illus. Tricia Tusa): (RL: ages 7-10; Puffin chapter book) On Seal Island off the coast of Maine (based on Monhegan Island), a place aswarm with pets of all kinds, nine-year-old Pru plans to keep her teacher from leaving by finding her a dog. 69 pp. Barlett lives in Vermont.

BATES, Betty

Ask Me Tomorrow (1987): (RL: Ages 8-12) Although fifteen-year-old Paige thinks he is determined to get away from home and pursue his own career goals in the big city, thirteen-year-old Abby confuses the issue by helping him see his Maine countryside in a more appreciative way. 135 pp.

BATES, Esther Willard

Marilda and the Witness Tree (1957): (RL: Ages 8-12) Two young girls, Marilda and Olga, have difficulty getting along until an old Witness Tree, a great white oak, helps solve some mysteries and provides a comforting place for the two girls. Set in New England. Maine? 180 pp.

BEALE, Will

Binky (1954; ill. Vladimir Bobri): (RL: Juvenile) 125 pp. Maine setting?
Seapiece: The Story of a Maine Boy (1966; ill. Frank Handlen): (RL: Young adult) A novel of growing up in Machias in Maine's Washington County. A boy with a difficult home life longs for a life of music. 147 pp.

BECKHORN, Susan Williams

Sarey by Lantern Light (2004): (RL: ages 9+) Set in the 1970s, the story of Sarey, who is dyslexic, and of her parents, who as a family move from Buffalo, NY to far northern Maine potato country to make a new start. When they are threatened with disaster, it's Sarey on whom depends the success of the family's new life.

BEIM, Lorraine

Just Plain Maggie (1951; ill. Barbara Cooney): (RL: ages 9-12) Set at a girls' camp in Maine.

BELLAIRS, John

The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull (1984): (RL: ages 9-12) Mystery/Magic. When Johnny Dixon takes a tiny skull from a haunted dollhouse, demonic forces are released, capturing Professor Childermass and leading Johnny on a harrowing chase to a deserted island off the coast of Maine. 170 pp.

BENNETT, Cherie

Bennett's teen series 'Sunset Island' is a coming-of-age series about three just-graduated high school seniors who work as au pairs on a resort island off the Maine coast. Published 1991-1997. For ages 12+.

Sunset Island: Along with two of her new friends (Samantha 'Sam' Bridges and Carolyn 'Carrie' Alden), eighteen-year-old Emma Cresswell has been hired as an au pair on Sunset Island, a tiny island off the coast of Maine where the rich and famous like to vacation.
Sunset Island
Sunset Kiss
Sunset Dreams
Sunset Farewell
Sunset Reunion
Sunset Secrets
Sunset Heat
Sunset Promises
Sunset Scandal
Sunset Whispers
Sunset Paradise
Sunset Surf
Sunset Deceptions
Sunset on the Road
Sunset Embrace
Sunset Wishes
Sunset Touch
Sunset Wedding
Sunset Glitter
Sunset Stranger
Sunset Heart
Sunset Revenge
Sunset Sensation
Sunset Magic
Sunset Illusions
Sunset Fire
Sunset Fantasy
Sunset Passion
Sunset Love
Sunset Fling
Sunset Tears
Sunset Spirit
Sunset Holiday
Sunset Forever

BENNETT, Dean

Finding a Friend in the Forest (2005): (RL: K-3) At a sporting camp in northern Maine, an aging beagle befriends a crippled whitetail doe.
Everybody Needs a Hideaway (2004): Somewhere in the woods of western Maine, there is a hideaway tree, in a secret place where a boy and his dog can be. Ben and his dog share the forest and marsh beneath Ben's treehouse with birds and beaver, red squirrels and crows and grouse and moose.

BENSEN, Rosie

Fessic, the Eddy School Cat (1999; ill. Abby Reid): (RL: Juvenile) Story about the Edgecomb (Maine) Eddy School cat.

BERNIER, Evariste

Baxter Bear & Moses Moose (1990; ill. Dawn Peterson): (RL: ages 3-7) Baxter has a peculiar hobby for a Maine bear (he collects hats), and Moses is not your typical moose (he has cold feet), and each has a vexing problem to solve. A humorous tale of cross-purposes.

BERRY, Erick

Beckoning Landfall: A Novel Set In Acadia National Park (1959) (RL: Juvenile) Novel set in Acadia National Park. Part of the 'Your Fair Land' series. 192 pp.

BESTON, Henry and Elizabeth COATSWORTH

Chimney Farm Bedtime Stories (1966; ill. Maurice Day) (RL: Juvenile): Stories of nature's doings in the country -- Bluebird and green umbrella, Mr. Bear reading, a nosey chipmunk, more. 78 pp.

BEYER, Audrey White

Katharine Leslie (1963) (RL: Young adult) Historical fiction. Novel about an innocent sixteen-year-old English girl sentenced to prison for theft. She escapes to pre-Revolutionary Maine and gets caught up in the struggle for American independence. Based on actual incidents. 279 pp.

BLAIN, John

The Lost City: A Rick Brant Electronic Adventure (1947): (RL: Young Adult) Rick Brant and his pal, Scotty, have the kind of adventure all boys would like to have. They live on Spindrift Island where Rick's father heads a group of scientists working in the field of electronics. Here and abroad, the boys encounter thrilling adventures and solve baffling mysteries. Second book in the series. 209 pp.

BLUME, Judy

Fudge-A-Mania (1990): Five-year-old Fudge Hatcher is back for more antics as he makes sure there is never a dull moment at the family's summer rental house in Maine. His latest plan is to marry his brother Peter's sworn enemy, Sheila Tubman.

BOOTH, Zilpha

Finding a Friend (1996): (RL: ages 5-9) Illustrated by Pam DeVito. The story of the friendship that grows between two very different boys during a summer in Maine. A handicap proves no barrier to love, trust and adventure.

BRADBURY, Bianca

Say Hello, Candy (1961): (RL: Juvenile) Candy initially resents her parents decision to move to Maine and open an antique store, but she soon makes friends and grows to love her new home. 190 pp.
Two On an Island (1965): (RL: Juvenile) On an uninhabited Maine island from which their rowboat has drifted away, nine-year-old Trudy and twelve-year-old Jeff endure a three-day trial of survival, fighting hunger, sunburn, and nighttime cold. 139 pp.

BRAGDON, Elspeth

Fairing Weather (1955): (RL: ages 6-9) Story of a young girl who lives in a lighthouse on a small island off the coast of Maine.
One To Make Ready (1959): (RL: Young adult) Setting: Cranberry Cove, Maine. Historical data based on lost Gloucester fishing schooner.
There is a Tide (1964): (RL: Young adult) Set in Maine.
That Jud! (1967): (RL: ages 6-9) When a troubled young boy named Jud goes to live with old Captain Ben in a village on the coast of Maine, things start to happen and Jud is blamed. Also features Jud's terrier-mix dog.

BRODEUR, Ruth Wallace

Steps in Time (1986): (RL: Juvenile) Evan (16) is spending the summer with Gram in her home on an island off the coast of Maine. The grandmother is cool to Evan, and Evan is forced to discover the island people on her own. One afternoon she poke around the attic of the island home looking for things to make her room homey. The memories she stirs up in Gram from the articles she brings downstairs starts Gram on the road to a better time.

BROWN, Todd

Entries from a Hot Pink Notebook (1995): (RL: Young adult) A gay teenager in Tranten Township -- rural Maine -- contends with his dysfunctional family, his serious crush on a teacher, and his first love.

BRYANT, Sally Smith

Here's Juggins (1997): (RL: ages 9-12) Mystery. Juggins and her father, both lobster fishermen, live in a small fishing village on the coast of Maine. When her father is accused of stealing lobsters from other fishermen's traps, Juggins and her summer friend Jimmy set out to clear her father's name.

BUZZEO, Toni

The Sea Chest (2002) (RL: ages 5+): A tale of both adoption and of Maine historical fiction, this book is set on a fictional midcoast Maine island and based on the Maine Hendricks Head Light baby-in-the-sea chest legend.

C-D

CAREY, Janet Lee

Molly's Fire (2000) (RL: ages 8-12) Historical fiction. The telegram says that her father died when his Thunderbolt aircraft was shot down by the Germans over Holland. But for Molly, that's impossible. She feels certain that her father has found a way to survive. As her small fishing town of Keenan, Maine, struggles with the deprivations of wartime, Molly awaits a sign from her father.

CARLSON, Dale and Danny

The Shining Pool (1979) (RL: Young adult) Science fiction. Teenaged Ben is the only person to realize the dangerous meaning of the underwater light which has affected the minds of the other young people in his small town in Maine.

CARLSTROM, Nancy White

Grandpappy (1990; ill. Laurel Molk): (RL: ages 4-8) Nate's visit to Grandpappy's house in Maine is filled with such everyday adventures as finding a four-leaf clover, watching a gray heron, and shopping for supplies. 32 pp.

CARLTON, Susan

Lobsterland (2007): (RL: YA) Sixteen-year-old Charlotte dreams of escaping from 'Bleak,' an island off Portland, by going to boarding school.

CHANDLER, Ruth Forbes

Middle Island Mystery (1961): (RL: ) Twelve-year-old Sarah spends the summer on an island in Maine, baby-sitting to earn enough money for a new dog for her brother. Though her job isn't easy, she has a few thrilling experiences, including exploring the secret of Middle Island's spooky old house. 160 pp.

CHASE, Mary Ellen

The Silver Shell (1930): (RL: ages 10-14) Story of a fisherman's daughter on a Maine island.
Richard Mansfield, the Prince of Donkeys (1964): (RL: Juvenile?) Sweet little story set in the author's childhood home area in rural Maine.

CHETKOWSKI, Emily

Mabel Takes the Ferry (1995): (RL: ages 5-8) A mixed-breed dog's day of adventure while searching for her family, who left her behind to go sailing on Penobscot Bay, as she makes new friends on a ferry, at the beach, and in a restaurant.

CLARK, Catherine

Maine Squeeze (2004): (RL: Young adult) When her parents go to Europe for the summer, Colleen lives on her own in their Maine island home, working a summer job and coping with her friends.

CLARK IV, John Rogers

HardScrabble Kids (2022): YA. Semi-magical tales of Maine. Myrna, Icky, Sara, Greg, and everyone else in these stories face a challenge. Some are more serious than others, but all seem daunting until a bit of magic comes along to help them. Challenges include helping a Revolutionary War ghost find eternal rest, coming up with a way to thwart a bully thanks to some football drills, an outhouse that serves as a transport system, time-traveling wildlife, a gift from a priest that saves a girl and her friend from a demon, and an alien stuck in a mall parking lot. Sixteen stories and one novella, set in Maine. 263 pp.

CLARK, Margaret Goff

Mystery of Sebastian Island (1976): (RL: ages 9-12) Mystery. A teenage girl discovers that the sinister forces at work on a Maine island center around an old lobsterman. 159 pp.

CLAYTON, Barbara

Second Best (1963): (RL: ages 9-12) Lucy has always felt she was second best until a summer in Maine and a mystery surrounding a lighthouse provides her with the confidence she needs. 184 pp.
Ditto (1968; ill. Sandra Willcox): (RL: ages 9-12) A girl visiting her grandfather in a tiny town in Maine does her best to be accepted by the three boys her age, but they are uninterested in having a girl join their club until some strange events begin to draw them together. 123 pp.

CLIFFORD, Harold B.

Sea Horse: A Shetland Pony Comes to Monhegan (1987): (RL ) When a steamer carrying animals for the Barnum and Bailey Circus sinks, a Shetland pony swims to the Maine island of Monhegan where he is adopted by a young boy. 68 pp.

CLYMER, Eleanor

Engine Number Seven (1975; ill. Robert Quackenbush): (RL: ages 4-8) In a little town in Maine the old narrow gauge railroad is gradually replaced by cars, trucks, and buses that do the same job just as well -- or can they? 46 pp.

COATSWORTH, Elizabeth

Away Goes Sally (1934): (RL: ages 9-12) Sally and her aunts and uncles make a journey to a new home in Maine, in a little house on sled runners, pulled by oxen.
Sword of the Wilderness (1936): (RL: Young adult) Tale of a Maine boy captured by Indians during the early days.
Alice-All-By-Herself (1937): (RL: ages 9-13) About a ten-year-old girl who lives in Damariscotta.
Five Bushel Farm (1939): (RL: ages 9-12) Maine pioneer story, companion story to Away Goes Sally.
Houseboat Summer (1942): (RL: ages 9-12) Two children, living on a houseboat, explore the Damariscotta area.
Thief Island (1943): (RL: ages 10-14) Dave Little and his two children live on a deserted island off the Maine coast. Lobstering, storms and even a friendly ghost enliven the tale.
The Wonderful Day (1946): (RL: ages 9-12) More about Sally and her life in Maine.
The Little Haymakers (1949): (RL: ages 7-11) Story of a boy and his pair of oxen.
The Captain's Daughter (1950): (RL: Young adult) Thomaston in the days when ships sailed from Maine to the Orient.
The Enchanted: An Incredible Tale (1951): (RL: Young adult) Magical fantasy. The moving story of a young man's strange romance in the 'Enchanted,' an actual, magical place in the northern Maine woods. Novel of a young man starting a wilderness farm, the encroaching forest, adjustment to marriage, etc.
Dollar for Luck (1951): (RL: ages 8-12) An adventure in the summer of 1882 of a boy from the land trading places with a girl from the sea.
Silky: An Incredible Tale (1953): (RL: Young adult) The second in her series of Incredible Tales. Set in the haunting countryside of Maine. When Cephas Hewes calls out in despair, a young stranger with grace and silken beauty appears.
Mountain Bride: An Incredible Tale (1954): (RL: Young adult) Modern version of an old Abenaki Indian legend, in the shadow of Katahdin. Set in the wilderness of Maine, this is the story of a man with mixed Indian blood and his family.
The White Room: An Incredible Tale (1958): (RL: Young adult) The real and the imagined become indistinguishable. Novel set on a hilltop on the Maine coast. A woman fights for control of herself her family from the loneliness of the land and the strong will of her husband's sister.
The Sailing Hatrack (1972): (RL: Juvenile) Fictitious account of life on a store-boat off the coast of Maine.
Marra's World (1975): (RL: Juvenile) Spellbinding adventure, set in the haunting landscape of a Maine island. Raised by a harsh grandmother and an indifferent father, Marra comes to understand her world with the help of a seal mother.

COONEY, Barbara

King of Wreck Island (1941): (RL: ages 10-12) A shipwreck story.
The Kelleyhorns (1942): (RL: ages 10-14) Penny and Pam, the Kellyhorn twins, who were separated after their mother's death, meet again at age 12 and launch their campaign to bring the family back together again.
Captain Pottle's House (1943): (RL: ages 8-12) Mystery and fun.
Miss Rumphius (1982): (RL: ages 4-8) Alice Rumphius grows from a little girl to a retired and well-travelled librarian in this story about how to live a good life by spreading beauty and sharing happiness. Miss Rumphius loves flowers, especially lupines, and shares her joy by scattering lupine seeds everywhere she goes, including the rocky landscape around her Maine home.
Island Boy (1988): (RL: ages 4-8) Matthias is the youngest son in a family of 12 children who live with their parents on Tibbetts Island, Maine. This is the story of how he grows from a little boy to a grandfather on this small island.

COONEY, Caroline

The Point Horror Trilogy (also called the Losing Christina series) is set in Maine. (RL: Young adult)

The Fog (1989): Point Horror Trilogy #1. Christina comes from her island home to the mainland of Maine to go to school, never guessing at the evil waiting for her.
The Snow (1990): 2nd in the series. Winter has come, and the Shevvingtons have nearly succeeded in destroying Anya, the dreamy senior who boards with Christina at the Shevvington?s house. Now the Shevvingtons have set their sights on Christina and her friend, sweet, trusting Dolly. While Christina tries to protect Dolly and bring Anya out of her desperate isolation, the Shevvingtons work to destroy Christina's reputation.
The Fire (2001): Last of the trilogy. Christina knows the Shevvingtons have left a trail of hollowed-out, lost girls in mental hospitals across the country, and she has seen the secret files that prove it. But the Shevvingtons are determined to destroy the evidence, and Christina. This time, they'll use fire. They stuff her pocketbook full of matchbooks, scribble flames over her class notes ?- anything they can do to make it look like Christina is obsessed with fire and a danger to herself and others.

COPELAND, Cynthia L.

Elin's Island (2002) (RL: YA) Thirteen-year-old Elin can't imagine living anywhere but the island off the coast of Maine where her father is lightkeeper, until the night in 1941 when she awakes to the sound of German torpedoes while her parents are on the mainland.

CORCORAN, Barbara (AKA Paige Dixon)

Cabin in the Sky (1976): (RL: Young adult) Story of the transitions as young Tommy Fortier leaves his cabin home deep in the Maine woods to find work on Broadway in New York City.
Annie's Monster (1990): Delighted when her prayers for an Irish wolfhound are answered, thirteen-year-old Annie, living in a small Maine town where her father is an Episcopal minister, soon finds herself in trouble when she tries to deal with the consequences of the large dog's playful curiosity.

COWAN, James and Lois

Trouble at Moosehead Lake (1993): (RL: ages 8-12) One of the Emergency Rescue! series. Five stories of emergency rescues. Davey Mountain and Matt Rich are trained to know how to react in emergency situations. If disaster strikes, they will be there, managing the scene until the 911 professionals arrive. Because in an emergency, there are only moments between life and death. 128 pp.
Nightmare at Norton's Mills (1993): (RL: ages 8-12) Matt Rich and Davey Mountain are no strangers to emergencies, like the drowning victim at Norton's Mills, or the tobogganing accident. 109 pp.

CROSSMAN, David A.

The Secret of the Missing Grave (1999): (RL: ages 10+) Summering on a Maine Island, 13 year old Ab joins her friend Bean in investigating the odd noises in her boarding house and solving the mystery of a missing treasure and stolen paintings.
The Mystery of the Black Moriah: A Bean and Ab Mystery (2002): (RL: age 10+) Set on Maine's Penobscot Island (modeled on Vinalhaven Island, east of Rockland). The two boys' adventures take them from 18th century pirate ships to 21st century mini-submarines.

CROWLEY, Michael

New Kid on Spurwink Avenue (1992): (RL: ages 4-8) Set in Cape Elizabeth.
Shack and Back (1993): (RL: ages 4-8) Takes place in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. When Tim 'Crater' Creighton insults the girls, the Spurwink Gang splits up, boys one way, girls the other -- until the boys are challenged to a bike race by the Broad Cove Bullies. Then, the Spurwink boys need the girls back in their gang, and they plead with T-Ball, the girl champion cyclist, to ride for them.

CULLEY, Betty

Three Things I Know Are True (2020): YA novel. This moving debut novel in verse about a teenage girl dealing with the aftermath of an accident that nearly takes her brother's life is a stunning exploration of grief and the power of forgiveness. Set in the bleak physical and emotional landscape of rural Maine, where hope left when the local mill closed.

CURRY, Jane

Parsley Sage, Rosemary & Time (1975; ill. Charles Robinson): (RL: ages 9-12) Time-travel. When young Rosemary goes to stay with her Aunt Sibby in Maine, the elderly cat, Parsley Sage, takes her to a hidden herb garden and shows her the stones marked Sage, Rosemary and Time (not thyme). When she picks a sprig of the time, time stops for her and she soon ends up back in 1700s.

CURTIS, Alice Turner

The Little Maid of Old Maine: A Novel About Colonial Times (1920/1999) : (RL: ages 7-12) These delightful stories are based on the history of actual heroines of colonial America.

DALY, Brian

Big and Hairy (1994): (RL: ages 9-12) Set on fictitious Spruce Island in Maine. Twelve-year-old Picasso Dewlap has just moved with his parents from Chicago, and longs to makes friends and fit in. When he and his middle school basketball coach, also from away, find a Bigfoot who can play like a pro, they put him on their losing team in hopes of making it a winning team. 133 pp.

DEAN, Carol Shorey

The Henhouse: A True Story of Growing Up on a Maine Farm (2003; ill. Sandra Dunn): (RL: ages 4-8) True story in the form of a picture book. Experiences of a girl, Carol, growing up on a chicken farm in central Maine. 32 pp.
The Live Bale of Hay: A Real Maine Advnture (2005; ill. Sandra Dunn): One night, chasing fireflies, a bale of hay starts to move. A story of an obstinate bear, a brave dog in a portrait of rural Maine 50 years ago. 32 p.

DEANS, Sis Boulos

Blazing Bear (1992; ill. Nantz Comyns): (RL: ages 6-11) Dramatic tale of a Norridgewock boy coming of age in the wilds of Maine.
Racing the Past (2001): (RL: ages 8-12). About fifth grader Ricky Gordon whose struggle with bullies and beatings brings him self-confidence, self-knowledge, and self-control. Set in rural Maine. Some themes are long-distance running, family struggles, and drunk-driving.

DIETZ, Lew

The Jeff White series are absorbing action/adventure tales of the Maine woods.

Jeff White, Young Woodsman (1949/1979): (RL: Young adult): Jeff returns to the North Woods where he learns more of the lore of the woods and tracks down clues to his father's death.
Jeff White, Young Guide (1951): (RL: Young adult)
Jeff White, Young Trapper (1951): (RL: Young adult): Adventures of a young trapper in the Maine Woods.
Jeff White, Young Lumberjack (1952): (RL: Young adult)
Jeff White, Forest Fire Fighter (1954): (RL: Young adult)

The Year Of The Big Cat (1970): (RL: Juvenile) A fifteen-year-old boy living in the Maine North Woods becomes obsessed with hunting down a mountain lion.

DIXON, Paige (AKA Barbara Corcoran)

Walk My Way (1980): (RL: ages 10-14) Attempting to flee from her problems, 14-year-old Kitty sets off into the wilderness determine to hike 50 miles from her New Hampshire home to the Maine village where her Aunt Lee lives.

DODD, Anne Wescott

The Story of the Sea Glass (1999; illus. Mary Beth Owens): (RL: ages 4-8) Takes place on a crowded city beach, then on a Maine island, and then back in time 70 years to Nicole's grandmother's childhood home, where Nana describes hiding the evidence of a broken vase in the ocean.

DORIAN, Edith

No Moon on Graveyard Head (1953): (RL: Young adult) In a small Maine seacost town, Steve graduates, goes to work for Marine Biological Laboratory, and becomes involved in a dangerous adventure.
Mystery on Graveyard Head (1958): (RL: Young adult)

E-F

ENSOR, Robert

Nellie: The Flying Instructor: As Narrated by Nellie(1995): (RL: ages 4-7) A Maine lighthouse director's fox terrier teaches a little seagull to fly. (See also Scarpino/Ensor's Nellie The Lighthouse Dog)

FAULKNER, Georgene

Melindy's Happy Summer (1949; ill. Elton C. Fax): (RL: ages 9-12) A young African-American girl from Boston spends part of her summer on a farm in Maine. 182 pp.

FIELD, Rachel

Calico Bush (1931): (RL: Juvenile) Set in 1743, concerns a French girl and an English family who travel to Maine to a new life. Beginning with the trip aboard the Isabella B. and continuing through the first year in their new home, season by season.
Hitty, Her First Hundred Years (1929): (RL: ages 8-12) Hitty is a real doll, made over a hundred years ago , of stout ash wood, in the state of Maine. Newbery winner, 1930.
Grace for an Island Meal (2006) (RL: Picture Book): Illus. by Maine resident Cynthia Jabar. Three visitors travel to a small Maine island for a picnic and count their blessings: a bright red fishing boat, berries and mussels to discover, a friendly cow to meet, and the surprise of a wild bicycle ride, the joy of family and friends coming together for a meal. 32 pp.

FLAHIVE, Jean Mary

Billy Boy: The Sunday Soldier of the 17th Maine (2007): (RL: YA) Historical fiction, based on a real event. When mentally challenged 20-year-old Billy Laird of Berwick, Maine, enlists in the Union Army, he is ill prepared for the training and fighting, especially after he is sent to a unit without his friends. Lonely and unsure of what to do on his own, Billy runs off and meets up with a runaway slave, Elijah. Together, and with the help of the Underground Railroad, the two make their way north to their fates. 291 pp.

FOSTER, Elizabeth

Gigi in America (1946): (RL: ages 8-12) Fiction about a merry-go-round horse at Old Orchard Beach.
The House at Noddy Cove (1949): (RL: ages 8-12) Story of a 10-year-old girl in 1896 who visits her grandfather in Maine and the adventures she has.

FOX, Genevieve

Bonnie, Island Girl (1954): (RL: Young adult) Problems, adjustments, and friendships at a high school on the mainland. The author was born and raised in Connecticut, and credited a summer in a Maine island fishing village as the inspiration for this book.

FOX, J.N.

Young Indiana Jones and the Pirates' Loot (1994): Young Indiana Jones series. In 1912 on the coast of Maine, the ghost of a young girl begs Indy to help find her father, who disappeared years before along with a map to some buried treasure. 130 pp.

FOX, Paula

Western Wind (1993): (RL: ages 10-14) Packed off to spend the summer with her artist grandmother on a lonely island, 12-year-old Elizabeth is determined not to enjoy herself. She meets a strange small boy, but just when things were getting exciting, the boy disappears and she is forced to face her grandmother's death alone. School Library Journal Best Book of the Year. Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book.

FRAUSTINO, Lisa Rowe

Grass and Sky (1994): (RL: ages 8-12) Set at a camp on a lake in northern Maine, deals with environmental issues as well as family communication between generations. Eleven-year old Timmi misses a big baseball tournament to spend his summer in the Maine woods with her grandfather and discovers another side of this seemingly aloof man.
Ash: A Novel (1995): (Young adult) Using colloquial language 15-year-old Wes recalls in diary form his older brother's slide into schizophrenia. The boys' hardworking, small-town Maine family is an integral part of the novel. Set in Calvin Cove, fictional town near Machias. An American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults.

FRAZER, Megan

Secrets of Truth and Beauty (2009): (RL: Young Adult) Set in Maine and rural Massachusetts. Dara Cohen won the title of Little Miss Maine at age 7, but at age 17, she is definitely plus-sized. When her (Re)Think Thin school project, which questions how society views overweight people, humiliates her parents, they send her to therapy. Dara decides to contact her estranged sister, who lives on a collective goat farm in rural Massachusetts.

FRITZHAND, James

Life is a Lonely Place (1975): (RL: Young adult?) Fifteen-year-old Tink's friendship with a writer temporarily staying in a house on the Maine beach contributes to anguishing problems at home and at school, but also gives him the sustenance for surmounting them. 204 pp.

FROST, Frances M.

Then Came Timothy (1950): (RL: ages 7-11) Mystery at Singing Cow Island. Kathy helps her friend Philip and a leprechaun named Timothy Sweetfern who has traveled from Ireland.

G-H

GARDEN, Nancy

My Sister the Vampire (1992): (RL: ages 8-12) A beautiful summer alone and unsupervised at their family's summer cabin in Maine turns deadly for Sarah, Tim, Jenny, and their neighbors as they discover the horrifying truth about the strange new owners of Spool Island.
Meeting Melanie (2002) : (RL: YA) Eleven year old Allie Ward's summer isn't looking especially fun filled until she makes friends with the daughter of a well-to-do family who are spending their first summer on Seal Island.

GARFIELD, Henry

Tartabull's Throw (2001): (RL: ages 9-12) Mystery/suspense thriller set during the 1967 baseball season, when the Boston Red Sox battled three other teams for the American League pennant. In this book, Cyrus meets up with Cassandra, who lives on Deer Isle, Maine.

GEORGE, Jean Craighead

The Firebug Connection: An Ecological Mystery (1993/1999): (RL: ages 9-12) Maggie and Mitch team up to discover why her magnificent European fire bugs fail to metamorphose into adults and are instead dying.

GOLDREICH, Gloria and Esther

What Can She Be?: A Farmer (1976; photos by Robert Ipcar) (RL: Juvenile) Introduces the varied aspects of a career in dairy farming through a description of the daily lives of two sisters who run a dairy farm in Maine.

GOODALE, Rebecca

Island Dog (1999): (RL: any age) This wordless book you on a visual tour of the simple joys of life on a Maine island as you follow an adventurous dog on a lovely summer day.

GOODRICH, Beatrice

Happy Hollow Stories by Judge Tortoise (1987, 1988, 1989): (RL: Juvenile) Three volumes of tales of wildlife on an old saltwater farm in Maine.

GOSSELION, Shirley A.

The Tales of Fabian and Gilead-Brown (1986): (RL: Juvenile) Animal story set in the adjoining towns of Shelbourne, New Hampshire, and Gilead, Maine. 80 pp.

GRAMATSKY-SMITH, Linda

Little Toot and the Lighthouse (1999; ill. Mark Weber): (RL: Juvenile) Little Toot (a tugboat) and his father take a trip to Maine, where Little Toot gets lost exploring with his friend Bob.

GREENE, Constance C.

Ask Anybody (1983): (RL: Older Juvenile) Her parents divorced, living in Maine, winter approaching, Schuyler and her pals plan a yard sale to benefit their favorite charity, but an outside sophisticate draws them in to her misadventures. 150 pp.

GUTMAN, Dan

The Get Rich Quick Club (2004): (RL: grades 3-6) Summer vacation in their small Maine town (near Farmington) doesn't look promising until twelve-year-old Gina and four of her friends make a pact to become millionaires before school starts in September.

HADLER, Berta and Elmer

Rainbow's End (1945): (RL: ages 8-14) Ship's carpenter at Snug Harbor with his cat.
Tommy Thatcher Goes To Sea (1937): (RL: ages 8-12) Small boy at Welcome Cove, Maine.

HAHN, Mary Downing

Look for Me by Moonlight (1995) : (RL: Young adult) Suspense. While her mother and stepfather travel, sixteen-year-old Cynda comes to stay with her father and his second wife, Susan, at their remote bed- and-breakfast inn on the Maine coast. At first, everything goes well: Cynda likes her five-year-old half-brother Todd; she can study at home; and she meets an attractive boy, Will. But Susan's pregnancy confirms that Dad's found a new life in which Cynda is just a visitor. Spooky legends about ghosts and a murder at the inn only increase her sense of isolation.
Deep and Dark and Dangerous: A Ghost Story (2007) (RL: young adult). Thirteen-year-old Ali encounters old secrets during her summer trip to her family?s Maine cottage.

HANCOCK, H. Irving

The Motor Boat Club of the Kennebec, or: The Secret of Smugglers' Island (1909): (RL: ages 8-12) Vintage boys' adventure story, takes place in Maine. First in a series of seven titles. Others, which don't take place in Maine, are: The Motor Boat Club at Nantucket; Or, The Mystery of the Dunstan Heir (1909; #2); The Motor Boat Club Off Long Island; Or, A Daring Marine Game at Racing Speed (1909; #3); The Motor Boat Club and the Wireless; Or, the Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise (1909; #4); The Motor Boat Club In Florida; Or, Laying The Ghost Of Alligator Swamp (1909; #5); The Motor Boat Club at the Golden Gate; Or, A Thrilling Capture in the Great Fog (1909; #6, set in San Francisco); and The Motor Boat Club on the Great Lakes; Or, the Flying Dutchman Of the Big Fresh Water (1912; #7).

HARLOW, Joan Hiatt

Shadows on the Sea (2003): (RL: grades 6-8) In the summer of 1942, Jill Winters, 14, has been sent to stay with her grandmother in Maine while her father, a famous singer, is on a U.S. tour and her mother is visiting her dying brother in Newfoundland. Jill is terrified that the German U-boats that patrol the shores of the North Atlantic will torpedo her mother's boat. Adding to her worries are the mysterious goings-on in Winter Haven. Even her grandmother is secretive about the Sunday night meetings she has with her friends. When Jill intercepts a carrier pigeon with a message in German, she begins to suspect that someone in the community is guilty of treason, and she has no idea whom to trust.

HARMON, Lyn

Flight to Jewell Island (1967): (RL: Juv) Historical novel set in 1676, during King Philip’s War. A thirteen-year old boy in colonial Maine learns that a man does what has to be done when he is left responsible for the garrison on a coastal island refuge during Indian attack.

HATCHER, Maynard R.

The Liberty Pole (1980): (Children's) Set in Machias, 1775, historical novel. Tale of love and adventure based on the first naval battle of the American Revolution when the tiny sloop Unity captured the British frigate Margaretta off the coast of Maine.

HAYWOOD, Carolyn

Taffy and Melissa Molasses (1969): (RL: ages 7-10) Story of three young children and a typical summer in Maine.

HETLEY, James A.

Dragon's Eye (2005): (RL: YA) In a small Maine town, two families with magical powers must overcome their differences to combat an evil sorcerer.

HIGHTOWER, Florence

Mrs. Wappinger's Secret (1956): (RL: ages 8-11) Digging for buried treasure on a Maine island.

HOFFMAN, Elizabeth Stokes

Miss Renee's Mice (2001; ill. Dawn Peterson): (RL: ages 4-8) Set in Maine. Miss Renee lives in an oceanside home where she builds dollhouses. After her barn is blown down, a family of mice takes up residence in her dollhouses. 32 pp.
Miss Renee's Mice Go To An Exhibition (2003; ill. Dawn Peterson): (RL: ages 4-8) Set in Maine. Miss Renee's mice go along with her to a miniatures show and exhibition, attracting more attention than do her miniatures. 32 pp.

HOLBROOK, Ruth

Katy's Quilt (1940): (RL: ages 8-12) Set in Maine in the late 1860s, the story of a little girl who disliked sewing patchwork.

HOLLAND, Isabelle

The Man Without A Face (1972/1987): (RL: Young adult) Explores relationship between a 12-year-old and his facially scarred ex-teacher, who is gay and lives alone in a big house on a Maine island.
Now Is Not Too Late (1980): (RL: Young adult) While spending the summer with her grandmother on a Maine island, 11-year-old Cathy learns a great many things about herself and her relationship with other people.

HOLLENBECK, Kathleen M.

Lobster's Secret (1996; ill. Jon Weiman): (RL: ages 4-8) Lobster emerges from his rocky hiding place off the Maine coast and prowls for dinner while watching for predators, a task made even more difficult after he molts. 31 pp.

HOLMES, Barbara Ware

Following Fake Man (2001): (RL: ages 9-12) Homer Winthrop's father is a mystery to him: he died when Homer was two, and Homer's mother won't talk about him. But when twelve-year-old Homer and his mother travel to the Maine coast, to a house the family lived in when Homer was a baby, he decides to unravel the mystery.

HOPKINS, Trish and Aaron

By the Sea - Brunswick, Maine (2006) (RL: 4-8). Picture book that follows the Winters family as they embark on a dreamy adventure following childhood dreams. From California to Maine, Nick, Annie, and their folks journey to a new home, discovering new people and places that their father left behind from his childhood in Brunswick, Maine. 48 pages.

HOPKINSON, Deborah

Birdie's Lighthouse (1997/2000): (RL: ages 4-9) A young girl in the 1850s keeps the lamps burning bright and steady when her father falls ill during a storm. Ten-year-old Birdie tells the story in the form of her diary: how her father becomes lighthouse keeper and the family moves to lonely Turtle Island off the coast of Maine, her role as assistant keeper, etc.

HORVATH, Polly

The Canning Season (2003): (RL: ages 5-9) 13-year-old Ratchet spends a summer in Maine with her eccentric great-aunts.

HOTZE, Sollace

Acquainted with the Night (1992): (RL: Young adult) During a summer on a Maine island, seventeen-year-old Molly and her older cousin become very close, as she helps him deal with his father's suicide and his experiences in the Vietnam War, and as together they share encounters with a troubled ghost.

HOWLAND, Ethan

Lobster War (2001): (RL: Young adult): Teenage brothers cross the threshold into adulthood but take different paths in this atmospheric first novel, set on the Maine coast. Although he fears being in the water, sixteen-year-old Dan is determined to be a professional lobsterman, despite pressure from his older brother Eddie and widowed mother that he attend college instead and despite the fact that someone is sabotaging his lobster traps.

I-J-K

IPCAR, Dahlov Zorach

Brown Cow Farm: A Counting Book (1959; 2003): (RL: ages 3+) Welcome to Brown Cow Farm, an old Maine farm where the animals seem to appear faster than they can be counted. Counts to 100. 48 pp.
Lobsterman (1962): (RL: ages 4-8) A boy in a Maine fishing village helps his father overhaul his gear, makes a trap and buoy of his own, sets out the traps, and hauls the traps. 36 pp.

IRWIN, Hadley (actually, Annabelle Irwin and Lee Hadley)

The Original Freddie Ackerman (1992): (RL: ages 9-13) Twelve-year-old Trevor Frederick Ackerman resigns himself to spending a boring summer with two elderly aunts on a Down-East island. Initially he depends on fantasizing military escapades with himself (Freddie Ackerman) as hero. Reality gradually becomes more exciting as he explores local legends with Ariel, a girl even lonelier than he. She too has an unhappy, fractured family life, and each of them learns to deal better with that reality as well as with each other.

JAHN-CLOUGH, Lisa

Country girl, City Girl (2004): (RL: YA) When thirteen-year-old Melita, sophisticated daughter of a New York actress, comes to visit Phoebe, who has been raised by her father on a farm in Maine, Phoebe discovers she has confusing feelings about their developing friendship. 185 pp.

JANE, Mary Childs

Probably others of hers set in Maine as well, but not verified.

The Ghost Rock Mystery (1956): (RL: ages 9-12) Mystery. When Janice and Tommy visit their Aunt Annabelle's guest house in Maine, they begin wonder if it's haunted.
Mystery at Pemaquid Point (1957; ill. Raymond Abel): (RL: ages 9-12) While staying in a mostly deserted town in Maine, Elizabeth and her new friend Henry try to solve the mystery of the burnings and thefts, during a raging hurricane.
Mystery at Shadow Pond (1958; ill Raymond Abel): (RL: ages 9-12) Mystery set in Maine.
Mystery in Longfellow Square (1964): (RL: ages 9-12) Set in Portland, Maine
Indian Island Mystery (1965): (RL: ages 9-12) Suspense novel set in Maine involving an old cabin on an island and a Native American bear's-tooth necklace.

JANOVER, Caroline

How Many Days Until Tomorrow? (2000; ill. Charlotte Fremaux): (RL: ages 9-12) Sequel to Josh, a boy with dyslexia. Josh, who has dyslexia, spends the summer on an island off the coast of Maine and finds that he has much to prove to his gruff grandfather and his older brother. 173 pp.

JENSEN, Nancy Orr Johnson

Helen, Ethel & the Crazy Quilt (2007) (RL: ages 6-10) Ellen Orr of Bailey’s Island corresponded with Helen Keller when both girls were 10. Illus. by Dawn Peterson.

JOHNSON, Eleanor Noyes

Mrs. Perley's People (1970): (RL: Juvenile) An amusing story of an eccentric woman, Helen Mewer Perley, who operates an unusual animal farm in Maine.

JONES, Carrie

Need (2009): (RL: YA) Suspense, romance, paranormal themes. Zara's life has been pretty rough so far; now she's living with her grandmother in sleepy, cold Maine, to keep her safe. However, safe she's not: a pixie with dreadful, uncontrollable needs is trailing her.

JONES, Dorothy Holder

Abbie Burgess, Lighthouse Heroine (1969; with Ruth Sexton Sargent): (RL: ages 8-12) Fictionalized biography of teen-age lighthouse heroine Abbie Burgess (1839-1892) who became a legend to sailors for her vigil on Matinicus Rock, an island off the coast of Maine. 190 pp.

JONES, Kimberly K.

Sand Dollar Summer (2006): (RL: ages 10-14). Debut novel by author from Vermont. Book set in Maine. A girl's story told with affection, grace, tension and suspense. The lives of 12-year-old Lise and her 5-year-old brother Free (who is intelligent but selectively mute) are changed when their mother is seriously injured in a car accident and decides to move with the kids to a shack on a beach in her hometown of Spindle Beach, Maine. Lise is afraid of the ocean and is bored and lonely, until she meets Ben, an elderly Passamaquoddy man, from whom she begins to learn a kind of eternal wisdom.

KANDOIAN, Ellen

Molly's Seasons (1992): (RL: ages 5-8) Molly observes the changing seasons in Maine and wonders what they're like in other places.

KEENE, Carolyn

Natural Enemies (1997): (RL: Young adult) Nancy Drew mystery. Nancy joins Ned at the Rocky Isle Marine Institute in Maine as a volunteer at the facilities aquarium and has to deal with a threat to destroy the entire institute. 150 pp.

KELLOGG, Elijah

The Elm Island series is set on the Maine Coast. These books are for young adults.

The Ark of Elm Island (1868)
Charlie Bell: The Waif of Elm Island (1868/1896)
Lion Ben of Elm Island (1868)
The Boy Farmers of Elm Island (1869)
The Hard-Scrabble of Elm Island (1870)
The Young Ship-Builders of Elm Island (1870): Story of a youngster who, in love with boats of all kinds, teaches himself the art of building them. In spite of an early set-back with his first effort (a sailing log canoe) he finally masters the difficulties and succeeds in becoming a much sought-after young boat-builder and shipwright.

The Whispering Pines series is set at Bowdoin College, Brunswick. These books are for young adults.

The Spark of Genius; or, The College Life of James Trafton (1871)
The Sophomores of Radcliffe; or, James Trafton and His Bosom Friends (1871)
The Whispering Pine; or, the Graduates of Radcliffe Hall (1872)
Winning His Spurs; or, Henry Morton's First Trial (1872)
The Turning of the Tide; or, Radcliffe Rich and His Patients (1873)
A Stout Heart; or, the Student From Over the Sea (1873)

KETCHUM [Murrow], Liza

The Ghost of Lost Island (1991): (RL: ages 9-12) Mystery. While helping his grandfather herd and shear his flock of sheep on a small island off the coast of Maine, twelve-year-old Gabe encounters a mysterious woman who may be the ghost of a drowned milkmaid. 165 pp.

KINSEY-WARNOCK, Natalie

Gifts from the Sea (2003): (RL: ages 5-9) Living alone in a Maine lighthouse in the 1850s, Quila and her father find their lives changed when they rescue a baby from the waves.

KOLLER, Jackie French

The Last Voyage of Misty Day (1992): (RL: Young adult) Having reluctantly moved to Maine after her father's death in Manhattan, fourteen-year-old Denise forges a healing friendship with a boat owner surrounded by considerable mystery. 154 p.

KROLL, Steven

Multiple Choice (1987): (RL: Young adult) Mystery. In a small town in Maine, a sex-obsessed teenager named Jason gets involved with a mystery and learns that humor and intelligence are as important as physical attributes. 149 pp.
Patrick's Tree House (1994; ill. Roberta Wilson): (RL: ages 7-11) When nine-year- old Patrick visits his grandparents in Maine, he finds a surprise, his own tree house, but he soon has to find a way to deal with two troubled boys who have taken it over. 64 pp.

L-M

LADD, Elizabeth

The Enchanted Island (1953): (RL: ages 8-12) Ten-year-old girl finds home and happiness on Maine island.
Janie (1955): (RL: ages 8-12) Mystery story with background laid in Isleboro.
The Night of the Hurricane (1956): (RL: ages 8-12) Story of how the big blow changed Judy's life, as well as turning the peaceful Maine seacoast into a wild and alarming place.
A Mystery for Meg (1962; ill. Mary Stevens): (RL: ages 8-12) Mystery. Meg's stay with her older brother on an island off the Maine coast is punctuated by mystery and suspicion. 189 pp.
Meg's Mysterious Island (1963): (RL: ages 8-12) A young man and his spunky little sister hope to escape the gossips of a small town in Maine by agreeing to spend the winter in an isolated cabin on a remote island in West Penobscot Bay. 218 pp.
Meg and Melissa (1964): (RL: ages 8-12). 189 pp.
Ironbound Island (1965)
Trouble on Heron's Neck (1966): (RL: Juvenile) 187 pp.
The Indians on the Bonnet (1971; ill. Richard Cuffari): (RL: ages 8-12) Thirteen-year-old Jess learns many things about the differences in people through his friendship with an Indian family near his home. 190 pp.

LAFAYE, A[lexandria]

Strawberry Hill (1999): (RL: ages 11-13) Raleia doesn't feel like she belongs in the modern world of 1976. And she doesn't feel she belongs with her hippie parents, either. When her family moves to Tidal, Maine, Raleia forges a friendship with eighty-eight-year-old recluse Ian, and an unlikely and combative but ultimately rejuvenating friendship results.

LASKY, Kathryn

My Island Grandma (1979) : (RL: ages 5-8) Abbey spends every summer with her parents and her grandmother on a Maine island, where the leisure activities include swimming in the ocean, picking blueberries, and finding the constellations.
Jem's Island (1982, illus. Ronald Himler): (RL: ages 7-10) Jem goes on his first overnight kayak trip with his father to an island in Penobscot Bay.
Fourth of July Bear (1991, illus. Helen Cogancherry): (RL: ages 5-8) Rebecca spends the summer on a Maine island and is invited to participate in a parade.

LAUBER, Patricia

Adventure at Black Rock Cave (1959): (RL: ages 6-9) Mystery. Addie and Chris try to solve the mystery of two strange men on Black Rock Island off the coast of Maine.

LEONARD, Constance

Aground (1984): (RL: Young adult) Mystery. Tracy James leaves her contented life in Florida to become involved in a mind-controlling cult in Maine and to learn why an old family friend's lobster business is being sabotaged. 172 pp.

LES BECQUETS, Daine

Season of Ice (2008) (RL: YA). Genesis is 17 when her father disappears on Moosehead Lake, Maine, and the family must wait until spring for answers.

LEVIN, Betty

Brother Moose (1990): (RL: ages 10-13) Two orphan girls are helped by an Indian family when they make
Fire in the Wind (1995): (RL: ages 9-13) Complex family relationships undergo many changes as Meg -- who lives in Maine with her family, her grandmother, and her uncle's family -- and her relatives struggle with the aftermath of the devastating wildfires that in 1947 burned great portions of the Maine woods. a perilous trip from Canada to Maine. Set in late 1800s.
Island Bound (1997): (RL: ages 9-12) Story of a boy accepting a dare to stay one week on deserted Fowler's Island off the coast of Maine and of the old tale of a ghost girl living there who seeks revenge against his family.
The Trouble with Gramary (1998): (RL: ages 9-12) Merkka's longing for a solid conventional existence is threatened by the art projects of her stubborn sculptor grandmother, whose scrap metal collection offends the other citizens in their small Maine village. 198 pp.
Shadow-Catcher (2000) : (RL: ages 10+) Although he often fancied himself a detective, Jonathan must become a real sleuth when he attempts to solve a mystery while accompanying his grandfather, a Civil War veteran and traveling photographer in Maine. Takes place 1890s.
Shoddy Cove (2003): (RL: ages 5-9) While Clare, 12, is spending the summer at Maine's Cossit Island Village, a living-history museum, she discovers two runaway children who are hiding at the museum and she solves a local mystery involving the underground railroad.

LIBHART, Virginia

Carrie's Dream (2005): (RL: Grades 3-7) Carrie, a 12-year-old girl living on a Maine Island in 1869, wants more than anything else to go to school.

LINCOLN, Nan

The Summer of Cecily (2004): (RL: Juvenile) NON-FICTION but tells a good story. On a cold, rainy spring day in Maine, Nan Lincoln awakens to life as usual on Mount Desert Island, Maine: a home to care for, a garden to tend, and children to raise. But by day's end, her world will be turned upside down. A baby harbor seal has been abandoned on the rocks. The tide is coming in, and the seal's mother is nowhere to be seen. The Lincolns must make a decision: step in and save the pup, or let nature take its course.

LINDBERGH, Anne Morrow

The Worry Week (1985, ill. Kathryn Hewitt; 2003, ill. Kevin Hawkes): (RL: ages 9-12) Left alone for a week in their family's summer house on a Maine island, Allegra and her two sisters scrounge for food and search for the treasure supposedly hidden somewhere on the premises.

LIPP, Frederick

Bread Song (2004): (RL: grades 1-4). With the help of his grandfather and a kindly baker, an 8-year-old Thai boy begins to lose his shyness and starts speaking English. Story set in Portland, Maine.

LORD, Cynthia

Rules (2006): (RL: ages 9-12). Twelve-year-old Catherine has a brother with autism, and because he loves rules, she tries to break the world down into statements and rules - some funny and some poignant -- about how people behave to help him understand, and stop embarrassing her! Won the Newbery Honor award.

LOVE, Pamela

A Loon Alone (2002) : Separated from his parents while swimming on a lake in the Maine woods, a loon chick must experience life's hard realities as he confronts a moose, a raccoon, and an otter. Part life lesson, part nature guide.
Lighthouse Seeds (2004): (RL: grades 3-5) Based on true story about the light at Mount Desert Rock around the turn of the 19th century. When Sarah's father, a lighthouse keeper, is transferred to a station on a barren island offshore, her mother misses her mainland garden; Sarah plants seeds in the crevices and cracks of the rock ledge, which bloom to her mother's delight and that of local fishermen.

LOWRY, Lois

Find A Stranger, Say Goodbye (1978): (RL: Young adult) Before Natalie, adopted as an infant, goes to college, she investigates her parentage, in a journey that takes her to a New York City and to a small Maine town.

LUTTERS, Valerie

The Haunting of Julie Unger (1977): (RL: Young adult?) Julie and her family spent many happy vacations in Maine. Now they are living there permanently, and Julie finds she is living with the ghost of her beloved father, a ghost she has built out of love and guilt. The wild geese, an old neighbor and a boy with a dog help her back from the brink of madness. 193 pp.

MABEE, Andrea

Dory Glory (2005): (RL: Grades 5-9) At the Landing Boat School in Arundel, 10-year-old Matt learns how to build a dory.

MACDONALD, Evelyn W.

The Turning Tide (1955): (RL: Young adult) Four generations of a Maine shipbuilding family.

MACKINNON, Bernie

Song for a Shadow (1991): (RL: Young adult) Tired of being compared to his rock star father and frustrated by his mother's mental illness, 18-year-old Aaron Webb attempts to sever ties with his dysfunctional family by settling, anonymously, in a small Maine town.

MARICONDA, Barbara

Turn the Cup Around (1997): (RL: Young adult?) Mysterious paintings in a cave near her grandmother's inn on the Maine coast and an unusual cat that her younger brothers want to adopt lead twelve-year-old Evie to face her suppressed memories of her mother's death and her father's breakdown six years before. 148 pp.

MARTIN, Ann

Baby-sitters' Haunted House (1995): (RL: ages 8-12) The Baby-sitters Club Super Mystery #1. Kristy and the other three BSC members have to take care of six kids for ten days in one of the most spooky houses they've ever seen. Set in fictional seaside town of Reese, Maine.

MARTIN, Charles E.

Island Rescue (1985): (RL: ages 5-8) Takes place Monhegan Island. Mae breaks her leg and is taken to the hospital so her leg can be put in a cast.

MARTIN, Jacqueline Briggs

The Finest Horse in Town (1992; ill. Susan Gaber): (RL: ages 4-8) Long ago, two sisters in Maine owned a remarkable gray horse named Prince, who became a legend in their family. 32 pp.
Grandmother Bryant's Pocket (1996): (RL: ages 5-8) This story is set in rural Maine in 1787. After her dog dies in a barn fire, Sarah is beset by nightmares. Her parents send her to visit her grandmother, an herbalist with remedies for many ailments. Grandmother Bryant gives Sarah a 'pocket' -- a cloth bag worn at the waist -- stuffed with healing herbs and embroidered with the words 'Fear Not.' Comforted by the pocket and the companionship of a stray cat, Sarah slowly overcomes her grief and fear.

MAY, Sophie

The Doctor's Daughter (1899): This first novel in the author's Quinnebasset Girls series, set in Quinnebasset, Maine, follows the trials and tribulations of high-spirited Marian (the titular doctor's daughter) and her more melancholy friend Judith.

MCCLOSKEY, Robert

Blueberries for Sal (1948): (RL: ages 4-8) Little Sal and Little Bear both lose their mothers while eating blueberries and almost end up with the other's mother.
Time of Wonder (1957): (RL: ages 4-8) Follows the activities of two children spending their summer vacation on an island off the coast of Maine. 62 pp.
One Morning in Maine (1976): (RL: ages 4-8) It's a big day for a little girl when she discovers her first loose tooth and makes a trip to the grocery store on the mainland.

MCMILLAN, Bruce

Finest Kind O' Day: Lobstering in Maine (1977): (RL: ages 3-8) A boy's first lobstering trip is captured in photographs and a brief text.

MEAD, Alice

Crossing the Starlight Bridge (1994): (RL: ages 8-11) Rayanne's life turns upside down when her father leaves and she has to move off the Penobscot reservation and go to live with her grandmother.
Walking the Edge (1995): (RL: ages 9-12) To escape the realities of his near poverty and his abusive, drunken, drug-smuggling father, 13-year-old Scott Easton throws himself into a 4-H science project raising clams to restock the bay of his coastal Maine village.
Soldier Mom (2001): (RL: ages 9-12) When her single-parent mother is called up from the army reserves to go to Saudi Arabia for the opening phase of the 1990 Persian Gulf War, seventh-grader Jasmyn must adjust to a newly chaotic life in her small Maine seacoast town. Mead paints an entirely convincing and involving picture of a realistically prickly heroine as she balances worry about her mom with resentment at being left behind.

MEADER, Stephen W.

Bulldozer (1951; ill. Edwin Schmidt): (RL: Young adult) When Bill Crane, just out of high school, reconditioned an abandoned bulldozer, things began to hum in the Maine community where he lived. The fascination of modern machinery is combined with plenty of action and fine characterization in this absorbing tale.

MILLER, Wiley

Extraordinary Adventures of Ordinary Basil (2006) (RL: 6-10) In 1899, 12-year-old Basil, living in a lighthouse on the coast of Maine, takes a trip to a fantastic city in the sky via air balloon.
Attack of the Volcano Monkeys (2008) (RL: 6-10) Basil and his friend Louise leave their ordinary days in 1899 Maine to search for dangerous Monkey Island. Second volume in the Ordinary Basil series.

MILLS, Claudia

All the Living (1983): (RL: ages 9-12) Karla's preoccupation with death and her brother's concern over being a loser threaten to ruin their summer in Maine. 130 pp.

MITCHELL, Todd

The Traitor King (2007): (RL 10-14) Darren and Jackie go to Maine to visit their uncle and discover that their family is far from ordinary. Fantasy mixed with fairy lore.

MOLLOY, Anne Stearns Baker

Uncle Andy's Island (1950; ill. Joshua Tolford): (RL: Juvenile) A vivid story of real boys in a Maine seacoast village, with an exciting background of rocky coasts, clanging buoy bells, and treacherous fogs.
Blanche of the Blueberry Barrens (1959; ill. Arline K. Thomson): (RL: Young adult) Story of a young girl who goes to Maine every summer with her family to pick blueberries.
Three-Part Island, a Maine Mystery (1960): (RL: ages 9-11)
The Girl from Two Miles High (1967): (RL: ages 9-11) After her father's death in Peru, a girl must adjust to life with her grandparents on the coast of Maine.
The Mystery of the Pilgrim Trading Post (1964, illus. Floyd James Torbert): (RL: ages 9-11) Juvenile mystery set in a small town in Maine near Canadian border. Twins Will and Lettie Dennis spend a summer with their cousin and aunt at their home in Maine and solve a mystery.

MONROE, Judith W.

Summerweek (2003): (RL: ages 3+) Full-page illustrations accompany this story in verse about a family's summertime visit to the Maine coast. Illustrated by Mimi Gregoire Carpenter.

MOORE, Leslie S.

How to Catch a Lobster (2007) (RL: Ages 4-8): Follow Anne and Ed Black as they lobster in Penobscot Bay.

MOORE, Ruth

Jeb Ellis of Candlemas Bay (1952): (RL: Juvenile)
The Dinosaur Bite (1976) : (RL: Juvenile) Set on an Island off the coast of Maine, a man and his six now motherless children settle in to escape the confusion of the city. They challenge both nature and the 'little foxes' of a region fully capable of guile.

MORRIS, ANN

Grandma Susan Remembers (2002): (RL: K-3) Three Woolwich children travel to Southwest Harbor where their grandmother tells them about family history and traditions.

MURPHY, Catherine Frey

Songs in the Silence (1994): (RL: ages 9-12) Having found a mental link with the two whales that have entered the harbor of her Maine island, eleven-year-old Hallie hopes both to save them and to use their healing power to help her hospitalized younger brother. 188 pp.

N-O-P

NERVELLE, Rosemarie

The Witch of Beaver Creek Mine (2007): (RL: grades 5-8) A young boy is determined to show his community that a disfigured old Micmac woman is not to be feared.

NICHOLS, Helen

Healing Love (1994): (RL: Young adult) Love story set during the early years of a nurse's training school, now part of the Eastern Maine Medical Center at Bangor, Maine.

OGILVIE, Elisabeth

Whistle For A Wind (1954): (RL: Young adult) About Jamie Bennett and life in Maine, in early 1800s.
The Pigeon Pair (1967): (RL: Young adult) An eighteen-year-old girl's account of nine important years of growing up on the back road camp outside a small fishing village in Maine, from her first recognition and shame of their poverty, to the loss of her mother, the struggle to remain a family, and the hope shared with her twin brother to regain their old family home.

OLIVER, Stephen Ryan

Phantom by the Sea (1983): (RL: ages 8-14) Also published as The Gitter, the Googer & the Ghost Ten-year-old best friends and ghost hunters, known to each other as Gitter and Googer, think they have a chance to find a real ghost when Gitter's family inherits an old house in Maine.

OLSON, Arielle North

The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter (1987): Takes place Matinicus Rock Lighthouse, 1850s. When her father's return to a Maine lighthouse is delayed by a severe storm, Miranda must keep the light going despite brutal weather and her own illness.

OUELLETTE, Daniel E.

Innocent Distraction (2013): (RL: Young Adult) After Meagan Clark's family moves from sunny California to the back woods of Maine, her life changes forever when, as punishment for cheating, she is forced to read to a boy in a coma. The author was born and raised in Lewiston.

PACKIE, Robert M.

Storm Treasure (1981; ill. Sherry Streeter): (RL: Juvenile) Fiction set in Maine. 154 pp.

PADIAN, Maria

Brett McCarthy: Work in Progress (2007): (RL: YA) Maine 8th-grader Brett McCarthy's life changes after she pulls a prank; suddenly she's got enemies and becomes a loser at school.

PAGE, Katherine Hall

Down East (1998): (RL: ages 8-12) Mystery. Boarding school classmates Christie, Maggie and Vicky are spending their summer vacation at Maine's Blue Heron Inn, owned by Maggie's parents, when strange things start happening -- all designed to frighten the guests. The girls suspect sabotage and get on the case to catch the culprit before the inn is put out of business. 160 pages.

PARNALL, Peter

Winter Barn (1986): (RL: ages 4-8) A dilapidated old barn shelters a wide variety of animals, including snakes, porcupines, cats, and a skunk, during the sub-zero winter temperature of Maine, while they wait for the first signs of spring.

PARSONS, Elizabeth

The Upside-Down Cat (1983): (RL: ages 8-11) A young boy learns a difficult but important lesson about life when he discovers his cat, missing since the previous summer, living happily with an old fisherman. Set in Maine.

PECK, Sylvia

Seal Child (1989): (RL: ages 9-12) While entranced by the seals that swim off the shore of the Maine island she visits during holidays, sixth grader Molly befriends an interesting girl her age who seems different from other humans.

PERROW, Angeli

Captain's Castaway (1998): (RL: ages 4-8) Sarah, a lighthouse keeper's daughter, finds a dog that survived a shipwreck off the Maine coast, and she patiently nurses him back to health. Two years later the ship's captain returns, wanting his dog, but the dog chooses Sarah. Based on a true story.
Sirius, the Dog Star (2002): (RL: ages 5-8) Ill. Emily Harris. Nathan, a young black crewmember on a coastal schooner, forms a friendship with a Newfoundland dog named Sirius. When Nathan's schooner is wrecked near Maine's Boon Island Light, the dog's bravery and loyalty are put to the test.

PETERS, Lisa Westberg

Good Morning, River! (1990, illus. Deborah Kogan Ray): Childhood summers spent on the St Croix River provided much of the inspiration for this story.

PHILLIPS, Ethel Calvert

The Saucy Betsy (1936): (Ages 9-12) About a lighthouse on Bayberry Island. [Maine setting not confirmed.]

PICKFORD, Susan Bassler

The Fairy Houses of Monhegan Island (1995; ill. Jennifer Briggs): (RL: ages 4-8) The magical fable of the fairy houses that have been marveled at for years. Based on the past practice of building fairy houses out of twigs, bark, and acorns in the woods on Monhegan Island. It is now discouraged due to ecological concerns. About 10 pp.

PLOURDE, Lynn

The Dump Man's Treasures (2008): (RL: 4-8). Illus. Mary Beth Owens. Mr. Pottle, the dump man of Shiretown, Maine has only one rule: No throwing books away. He joins the local children to rescue and recycle those found in the trash.

POCHOCKI, Ethel

A Penny for a Hundred: A Story of Friendship (1996; ill. Mary Beth Owens): This is a story of the Depression-era childhood of a Aroostook County girl.
The Gazebo (2002; ill. Mary Beth Owens): Beginning and ending set in Maine, 1930s. A little girl becomes intrigued with gazebos when she finds an old book about them in her father's library; through the book, she travels the world, enchanted by miniature buildings in far-away lands. In the summer, she plays in the gazebo her parents built adjacent to their seacoast cottage in Maine. When she grows up, she actually travels the world, as an ambassador, and she builds her own gazebo in Maine.
Maine Marmalade (2004; ill. Norman Chartier), a tale of resourcefulness, in which Anthony tries to make jam from berries and other fruit that aren't in season

PRIEST, Robert

The Town That Got Out of Town (1989): (RL: ages 4-9) When the residents of Boston leave town over Labor Day weekend, the city's buildings and landmarks pull themselves out of the ground and head for Portland, Maine.

Q-R-S

RANKIN, Laura

Swan Harbor (2003): (RL: Pre-K) Youngsters learn to count from one to twenty all the way through four busy seasons in Swan Harbor, Maine.

RICE, Bebe Faas

Music From the Dead (1997): (RL: Young adult) When Marnie's father rented Stoneycraig, an old house on the rocky coast of Maine, he didn't know it would be haunted by the eerie sobbing of a dead woman. What is the mystery that surrounds her death? And will it cost Marnie and Peter their lives? 193 pp.

RICH, Louise Dickinson

Start of the Trail (1949): (RL: Young adult) Fictional tale of an 18-yr-old guide.
Trail To the North (1952): (RL: Young adult) A Bill Gordon story.
Only Parent (1953; illus. Euclid Shook): (RL: Juvenile) Tale of a single mother living in a cabin in the Maine woods.
Mindy (1959): (RL: Young adult) Set in Maine. A young girl looks ahead and makes a courageous choice
Star Island Boy (1968; illus. Elinor Jaeger): (RL: Young adult)
Three of A Kind (1970): (RL: Young adult) An 11-yr-old girl in foster care interacts with emotionally disturbed 4-yr-old boy, in Maine.
Summer at High Kingdom (1975) : (RL: Young adult?) The members of a hippie commune established on a nearby farm have a marked effect on the attitudes of a young Maine boy and his family. 112 pp.

ROBERTS, Willo Davis

Invitation to Evil (1970): (RL: Young adult) Vonna went to the old Bracy house in Maine, ready to do anything for the sake of Robby, but the conflicts and hatreds that filled that house were almost too much for her sacrifice. And then Vonna found herself in terrifying danger, asking herself if even Robby was worth the price she was being asked to pay. 270 pp.

ROBINSON, Gertrude

Sign of the Golden Fish, a Story of the Cornish Fisherman in Maine (1949): Adventures of a teenaged boy who jumped ship to bring to the colonies the Old World skill of fish-curing that had been the pride of the Tobey family for generations. Part of The Land of The Free series. 207 pp.

ROBINSON, Mabel Louise

Bright Island (1937): (RL: ages 9-12) Island-born girl has to go away to school in a sophisticated world, but always goes home to the island. Newbery Honor book. 268 pp.
Strong Winds (1951): (RL: ages 9-12) Story about a Maine coast girl.

ROBINSON, Sarah

Crispy Critter's Christmas Tree (2007) (RL: ages 5-9) A pony helps its family find the perfect tree in the Maine woods.

ROBINSON, Tom

Trigger John's Son (1949): (Young adult) An orphan from Calais who does not want to be adopted.

ROCKWELL, Anne

Ferryboard Ride! (1999, illus. Maggie Smith): (RL: ages 4-8) A young girl describes her ferryboat ride as she travels to her summer island home.

ROLERSON, Darrell A.

A Boy and a Deer (1970): (RL: ages 9-12) A young boy living on a Maine island finds a motherless deer and decides to raise him as a pet.
Mr. Big Britches (1971): (RL: ages 9-12) After shooting a mother fox, a young boy finds her cub and decides to keep it despite his aunt's anger. Takes place in Maine.
A Boy Called Plum (1974; ill. Ted Lewin): (RL: ages 9-12) A lonely boy living on a small island steals a blue heron from its nest and decides to raise it. 147 pp.

ROOP, Peter and Connie

Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie (1987): (RL: ages 4-8) In the winter of 1856, a storm delays the lighthouse keeper's return to an island off the coast of Maine, and his daughter Abbie must keep the lights burning by herself.

ROSSNER, Judith

Emmeline (1980): (RL: age 12+) The story of Emmeline Mosher, who, before her fourteenth birthday, was sent from her home on a farm in Maine to support her family by working in a cotton mill in Massachusetts. 331 pp.

ROY, Ron

Nightmare Island (1981; ill. Robert MacLean): (RL: ages 8-12) On their first solo camping trip to Little Island off the coast of Maine, Harley and his younger brother are engulfed by a fire that starts on an oil slick in the water and moves onto the island. 69 pp.
Someone is Following Pip Ramsey (1996; ill. Elizabeth Wolf): (RL: ages 6-9) At the start of his family's vacation on the coast of Maine, nine- year-old Pip Ramsey buys an old Russian nesting doll at a yard sale and is soon certain that someone is extremely interested in getting the doll from him.

RUPP, Rebecca

Dragon of Lonely Island (1998, illus. Wendell Minor): (RL: ages 9-12) Hannah, Zachary, and Sarah Emily are spending the summer on Lonely Island off the coast of Maine, where they learn from a glittering, three-headed dragon with a kind heart, an unpredictable temper, and a memory that spans 20,000 years. Old-fashioned tone.

ST. GEORGE, Judith

The Chinese Puzzle Of Shag Island (1976): (RL: ages 9-12) Mystery. What seems a harmless enough trip to the family's ancestral home on Maine's Shag Island turns into something much more dangerous for 12-year-old Kim, as she finds her great-grandfather controlled by Chinese music from his past. 157 pp. This book was re-issued in 2007 as Mystery Isle

SARGENT, Ruth Sexton

The Island Merry-Go-Round (1988; illus. Pam DeVito): Takes place on Maine island.
Tunnel Beneath the Sea (1993; illus. Peter Gorski and Pam DeVito) : (RL: ages 8-12) A young boy and his sister discover a Civil War tunnel connecting to island forts off the coast of Maine. Facing danger and death, they uncover a mystery and save their father's career.

SAWYER, Ruth

Year of Jubilo (1940): (RL: ages 12+) Sequel to Roller Skates. Lucinda is almost grown up. Her family had to go to Maine to spend a year in the summer cottage which was all that was left to them after her father died.
Maggie Rose -- Her Birthday Christmas (1952, illus. Maurice Sendak): (RL: ages 8-12) An industrious little Maine girl and her less industrious family.
Daddles, the Story of a Plain Hound-Dog (1964; ill. Robert Frankenberg): (RL: ages 9-12) Daddles, a joyful hunting dog, is the seasonal pet of a brother and sister who spend their summers in Maine. 99 pp.

SCARPINO, Jane

Nellie the Lighthouse Dog (1993, illus. Robert Ensor): (RL: ages 4-8) A quick-witted wire-haired fox terrier saves the day at Maine's Marshall Point Lighthouse. Port Clyde, Maine. (See also Ensor's Nellie: The Flying Instructor.)

SCHMIDT, Gary D.

Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (2004): (RL: YA) A Newbery Honor Book. "Turner, a rigid minister's son, doesn't fit in when his family moves from Boston to the small town of Phippsburg on the coast of Maine in 1912. ... Then he makes friends with a smart, lively young [African-American] teen, Lizzie Griffin, living in a small, impoverished community founded by former slaves on nearby Malaga Island. When the town elders drive Lizzie's people off the island, Turner stands up for them, but he can do nothing. Lizzie eventually dies in an insane asylum" (Booklist review). Based on a true story. 224 pp.

SCHNEIDER, Jack

Allagash River Towboat: A Maine Logging Adventure (2003): (RL: ages 12+) A glimpse of the life of Maine rivermen of the 1930s. Eleven-year-old Ben accompanies his Uncle Horace on a trip upriver and has an adventure. Black-and-white illustrations by the author. 72 pp.

SHEPARD, Steven

Fogbound (1993): (RL: ages 5-9) When twelve-year-old Jason rows his boat to the Maine island where he has accidentally left his father's knife, he must face threatening fog, treacherous currents, and a sinister lobsterman. 29 pp.

SHETTERLY, Susan Hand

The Tinker of Salt Cove (1990, illus. Siri Beckman): (RL: ages 11+). Romantic tale takes place at the end of the 19th century, based on the life of an itinerant English tinker, as recorded in the annals of Sullivan, Maine. Inevitable changes are altering the lives of the inhabitants of this seacoast town. Their orderly ways, set by nature, are disturbed by the arrival of the mysterious and solitary tinker.

SIMPSON, Dorothy

Island in the Bay (1956): (RL: Young adult) Story of a boy's struggle to win a place for himself in a Maine lobstering village.

SKURZYNSKI, Gloria, and Alane Ferguson

Out of the Deep (2002): (RL: ages 3-7) Part of the 'Mysteries in Our National Parks' series. The Landon kids try to discover why dead sea mammals are washing up on the shores of Acadia National Park. Bindy, the family's foster child, knows who's responsible, but is afraid to tell.

SMITH, Harry

Michael and the Mary Day (1979): (RL: Juvenile) Michael is taken on by the captain of the schooner Mary Day and has a fine adventure on Penobscot Bay while learning to be a sailor. 59 pp.

SMITH, Maggie

Counting Our Way to Maine (1995): (RL: ages 2-6) Playful counting book that introduces the numbers one to twenty and takes the readers on an unforgettable summer vacation to Maine. The trip is full of things that make summer, and Maine, so special: building sand castles, picking blueberries, chasing fireflies, and more.

SMITH, Ruel Perley

The Rival Campers Ashore, or The Mystery of the Mill (1907): (RL: ages 8-12) 297 pp.

SMITH, Susan

Christmas Tree in the Woods (1932): (RL: ages 9-12) Christmas holidays in Maine.

SONNENMARK, Laura A.

A Summer For Always (1995): (RL: Young adult) Spending her sixteenth summer on the beautiful Maine coast and enjoying the attentions of a local boy named Michael, Marty hides the truth about her mother's alcoholism from her new friend, a secret that nearly drives him away. 150 pp.

SPEARE, Elizabeth George

Sign of the Beaver (1983): (RL: ages 9-12) Until the day his father returns to their cabin in the Maine wilderness, twelve-year-old Matt must try to survive on his own. Although Matt is brave, he's not prepared for an attack by swarming bees, and he's astonished when he's rescued by an Indian chief and his grandson, Attean. As the boys come to know each other Attean learns to speak English while Matt becomes a skilled hunter. Though many months have passed, there's no sign of Matt's family. Then Attean asks Matt to join the Beaver tribe and move north. Should Matt abandon his hopes of ever seeing his family again and move on to a new life?

SPENCER, Jamie

The Train to Maine (2008): (RL: Ages 4-8) A rhyming picture book follows a family's journey to Maine.

STEELE, William

Daniel Boone's Echo (1957): (RL: ages 7-12) Funny tale of a boy's survival, takes place in Maine.

STENGEL, Joyce A.

Mystery at Kittiwake Bay (2002): (RL: ages 10-14) With help from her new friend Ryan, thirteen-year-old Cassie explores the mysteries surrounding a mansion in Maine that was once an Underground Railroad stop and is now a retirement home.

STEPHENS, C. A.

The Knockabout Club in the Woods (1881): (RL: Young adult) The adventures of six young men in the wilds of Maine and Canada. Other Knockabout tales had other settings, including the tropics.

The Old Squire books are appropriate for young adults, although adults may also enjoy them.

When Life was Young at the Old Farm in Maine (1912)
Haps and Mishaps at the Old Farm (1912)
A Great Year of Our Lives at the Old Squire's (1912)
A Busy Year at the Old Squire's (1922)
Stories from the Old Squire's Farm (1995; ed. Charles G. Waugh and Eric-Jon Waugh): A collection of 36 tales that transcend time about six young children orphaned by the Civil War who come to live with their grandparents in rural Maine. These stories were originally published in the late 1800s and early 1900's in the children's magazine The Youth's Companion.
Sailing on Ice: and Other Stories From Old Squire's Farm (1996; ed. Charles Waugh and Larry S. Glatz): Stories of life in rural Maine following the Civil War.

STOLZ, Mary

The Sea Gulls Woke Me (1967): (RL: Young adult) Jean, with hair long enough to sit on, is convinced she is the world's worst social misfit. Then she accepts a summer job at her uncle's hotel at St. Kethley, Maine, she cuts her hair and her whole life changes. Coming-of-age story. Stolz's 3rd novel.

STONE, Bruce

Autumn of the Royal Tar (1995): (RL: ages 10-14) Historical fiction. When a ship sinks off the coast of Maine, 12-year-old Nora tries to help the survivors, which include an orphaned boy and an elephant. 168 pp.

T-U-V

TESTA, Maria

Some Kind of Pride (2001): (RL: ages 9-12) Ruth DiMarco is already on her way to achieving her dream of becoming a major-league baseball player. Eleven-year- old Ruth is the star shortstop in her small Maine town, and now a reporter is coming to interview her for Sports Illustrated magazine. But after she overhears her father comment that it's a shame that with her talent, she's a girl, she begins to doubt herself and wonder who she is.

THOMAS, Ken

Marooned (1990): (RL: ages 5-8) While spending the summer on the Maine coast in the 1920s, two young brothers become marooned on tiny Long Island and try to find a way to get home.

TRACY, Ann Blaisdell

What Do Cowboys Like? (1994): (RL: Young adult) Growing up in a small Maine town in the 1950s, Fish longs to be transported out of her bookish world into the realm of real-life experience. Her wish comes true with a vengeance when she falls in love with a boy she has been friends with for years. Her sheltered existence is shaken by a calamity that catapults her into the adult world and affects her so profoundly that she can no longer escape into her writing. Author is Colby College alumna (1962).

TWOMEY, Dennis

Patch the Pup: A Maine Adventure (1990; ill. David Theriault): (RL: ages 4-8) During a winter vacation in Maine a snobbish Boston terrier learns how to get along with others and make friends. 47 pp.

VAN WOERKOM, Dorothy

Becky and the Bear (1975; ill. Margot Tomes): (RL: Juvenile) Story of young girl Becky who catches a bear! Set in colonial Maine.

VANCE, Marguerite

Jeptha and the New People (1960; ill. Robert MacLean): (RL: ages 4-8 ) Story of a young boy, Jeptha Brewster, who lives above a restaurant near Penobscot Bay, along the Maine coast, and about the people who move in next door (including a boy his own age, John) and the relationships that develop. Tragedy and prejudice are overcome during the course of a summer. Other elements: father lost at sea; Indian servants; a chained cheetah. 113 pp.

VAUGHAN, Marcia K.

Abbie Against the Storm: The True Story of a Young Heroine and a Lighthouse (1999; ill. Bill Farnsworth): (RL: ages 4-8) Fictionalized account of an incident in the life of a fourteen-year- old girl who tends her family's lighthouse during a fierce storm on the coast of Maine in the winter of 1856.

VOIGHT, Virginia Frances

Black Elephant (1959; ill. William A. McCaffery): (RL: ages 8-12) A young boy named Dilly joins the Hathaway Rolling Show circus and becomes involved with the care of elephants. When an abused young black elephant named Ebony escapes into the Maine woods, Dilly must find the elephant and regain its trust. 182 pp.
Treasure of Hemlock Mountain (1961): (RL: Young adult) Mystery, takes place in Maine.
Mystery at Deer Hill (1971): A mystery for young people, set in the Maine woods.
Red Blade and the Black Bear (1973): (RL: ages 8-12) An Indian boy befriends an orphaned bear cub, and eventually the bond between them grows stronger as each has a chance to save the life of the other. Takes place in the Saco River Valley. 157 pp.

VOIGT, Cynthia

Angus and Sadie (2005): (RL: ages 8-12) Two border collie puppies are adopted by a Maine farm couple.
Tree by Leaf (1988): (RL: 9-12) Twelve-year-old Chlothilde struggles to accept her father's war disfigurement and opposes her mother's desire to sell Clothilde's land, a peninsula off the coast of Maine, to help pay family expenses. Set in 1921.

W-X-Y-Z

WAIT, Lea

Stopping to Home (2001) (RL: ages 8-12) Historical fiction. A strong and memorable heroine narrates this compelling debut novel, which effectively evokes life in 1806 Wiscasset, Maine (then part of Massachusetts). After the death of her young mother during a pox epidemic and the prolonged absence of her mariner father, 11-year-old Abigail must work for young Widow Chase to earn room and board and to keep her four-year-old brother, Seth, from being sent to the orphanage. Practical and observant Abbie ascertains Widow Chase's dire financial situation, notices that the woman is expecting a baby and schemes a plan using the widow's millinery talents to support and keep them all.
Seaward Born (2003) : (RL: ages 8-12) Historical fiction. Begins in Charleston, then moves to Boston, and then the major character (and plot) shift to Wiscasset, Maine.
Wintering Well (2004): (RL: ages 8-12) Historical fiction. Story of a boy who loses a leg in a farm accident, set in 1820's Wiscasset Maine.
Finest Kind (2005), historical fiction set in 1830s Wiscasset, depicting a Boston family's assimilation into small town Maine life.

WALKER, David

Pirate Rock (1969): (RL: YA) Two teen-age boys are torn between loyalty to the man who has employed them as boat hands so fairly and loyalty to the two countries whose security is threatened by his Communist spying activities. Set in Maine near the Canadian border.

WALKER, Holly Beth

Mystery of the Black-Magic Cave (1971): (RL: ages 8-12) Mystery. The 5th book in the Meg Mystery series (of 6 total). Meg Duncan and her best friend, Kerry, visit her Uncle Hal in Merrybones, Maine. They stumble upon a mystery involving local women pretending to be witches in a cave up on a mountain.

WALLACE-BRODEUR, Ruth

Heron Cove (2005): (RL: ages 9-12) Old-fashioned story. While her flighty single mother attends a six-week herb institute in Vermont, daughter Sage is sent to Maine to stay with two great-aunts whom she barely knows. At first feeling abandoned and dismissed, the 12-year-old eventually grows to love the seaside house, her great-aunts, and her new friends.

WATERS, John F.

Summer of the Seals (1978; ill. Mike Eagle): (RL: ages 9-12) A teenage boy and girl befriend an old hermit and attempt to discover who is shooting the seals along their stretch of Maine coast. 94 pp.

WEAVER, Rhonda Hanson

On the Edge (1994): (RL: ages 9-12) Adventure tale about a pair of young teen girls who find themselves lost in Maine's North Woods.

WEINBERGER, Jane

Wee Peter Puffin: (RL: ages 4-8) The adventure of Peter Puffin, who lives on Matinicus Rock off the coast of Maine.

WEISS, Harvey

Twenty-Four and Stanley (1956): (RL: ages 6-10) Twenty-five children on a Maine beach find a derelict sloop.

WHITE, E. B.

Charlotte's Web (1952): Set in Blue Hill, Maine, and at the Brooklin Fair. A spider saves a pig from slaughter.

WHITEHEAD, Roberta

Wish I May (1953): (RL: ages 6-9) Set on the Maine coast.

WIGGIN, Eric E.

Maggie's World series, Christian trilogy set in the northwoods of Maine in 1875 and featuring a high-spirited girl. (RL: ages 10 to 14)

Maggie: Life at the Elms: After her mother remarries, twelve-year-old Maggie decides to go live with her grandfather in the woods of northern Maine.
Maggie's Homecoming
Maggie's Secret Longing (1995): Seventeen-year-old Maggie asks God for guidance during her first year as teacher of a one-room school in rural Maine in 1879.

The Hannah's Island series features mystery-solving by Christian homeschoolers in rural Maine. (RL: ages 8 to 12)

A Hound for Hannah (1995) : Hannah Parmenter and her new dog, Hunter, live on an island in northern Maine where Hannah's family runs a small tourist lodge. Hannah and her older brother, Walt, are homeschooled. 144 pp.
The Mystery of the Sunken Steamboat (1995): Hannah learns a lesson about pride when she discovers a steamboat under the surface of Moosehead Lake that could bring her fame and riches. 144 pp.
The Mysterious Stranger (1995): Hannah spots a light in the old abandoned Sampson place, the only other house on the island. The mystery she unravels is serious stuff. 144 pp.
The Lesson of the Ancient Bones (1996) : When 12-year-old Hannah accidentally stumbles upon what looks like a very old piece of Native American pottery, what she uncovers is an archaeological mystery that teaches her a life-changing lesson about the power of love and respect. 144 pp.
The Secret of the Old Well (1996): The Parmenter family dog falls into a dry, abandoned well, and, as Hannah and her brother become involved in the rescue and then in their further exploration of the well and its adjoining tunnel, they learn more about their island home and discover some Ice Age fossils that have been buried beneath it. 144 pp.
The Texas Rodeo Showdown (1998): Hannah Parmenter, 13, of Beaver's Island, Maine, learns that the Texas Mesquite Rodeo is coming to the nearby Skowhegan Maine State Fair. She decides to enter herself and her black stallion, Ebony, in the barrel-riding contest. Much to Hannah's surprise, they win first prize and a chance at the national championship in Dallas, Texas. God teaches Hannah many things about herself during the trials that bring her to Dallas and back to Maine. 144 pp.

WIGGIN, Kate Douglas

Timothy's Quest (1892): (RL: Juvenile) Set in Buxton, Maine.
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903): (RL: ages 9-12) The irrepressible 10-year- old Rebecca Rowena Randall burst into the world of children's book characters, and her new life in Maine, at a time when storybook girls were gentle and proper. She wins over her prim Aunt Miranda, the whole town, and thousands of readers everywhere with her energetic, indomitable spirit.
The New Chronicles of Rebecca (1907) (RL: Juvenile).
Susanna and Sue (1909): (RL: Young adult) Story of a little girl and her mother who find refuge in a Shaker settletment.
Mother Carey's Chickens (1911): (RL: ages 9-12) When the widow Mrs. Carey is forced to put up the family's new house in Maine for sale, her daughters try to scare off potential buyers by claiming that the domicile is haunted. Made into a movie of the same name (1938), and remade as Summer Magic in 1963.

WILD, Elizabeth

Along Came a Black Bird (1988): (RL: ages 9-12) Three young sisters and their pet crow befriend a lonely boy from a neighboring farm and discover some of the harsher realities of life. Set in Maine. 184 pp.

WILGUS, Asa

Just One Cat (1950/1952): (RL: Juvenile?) Story of an adopted cat and a Maine Island family who deal with tragedy together. 160 pp. Fiction?

WILLIAMS, Maiya

The Golden Hour (2004) (RL: ages 10+) When Rowan and Nina Popplewell's father sends them for the summer to their deceased mother's aunt's house in Maine, they explore the secrets of the town and the abandoned Owatannauk resort with new friends Xanthe and Xavier. The resort comes to life and offers time-travel opportunity during the magical evening 'golden hour' (adapted from School Library Journal review).
The Hour of the Cobra (2007) (RL: ages 10+): Time travel. In this sequel to The Golden Hour, 14-year-old Xanthe leads the adventure as four time-traveling kids make a trip back to ancient Egypt to rescue the library at Alexandria from destruction by Caesars troops. Rowan, Nina, Xanthe, and Xavier have returned to Owatannauk, Maine, and the mysterious resort/time portal that took them to the French Revolution in The Golden Hour. Now the kids have official permission to time travel, as assistants to Aunt Agatha and Aunt Gertrude in their mission to retrieve precious documents from the famous library at Alexandria, Egypt, before the collection is burned by Julius Caesar.

WILLIAMSON, Penelope

A Wild Yearning (1990): Romance. Trapped in a life of poverty in the slums of Boston, young Delia McQuaid dreamed of becoming a lady. Answering an advertisement for a mail-order bride, she headed north, toward a remote Maine settlement, an uncertain destiny and a wedding with a stranger. 440 pp

WILSON, Hazel

The Red Dory (1939): (RL: Juvenile) 239 pp.
The Owen Boys (1947): (RL: ages 10+) Escapades of two boys in the 1880s. Set in Maine. 192 pp.
Island Summer (1949): (RL: ages 8-12) Takes place on an island in Casco Bay.
Thad Owen (1950): (RL: ages 10+) Sequel to The Owen Boys.
His Indian Brother (1955; ill. Robert Henneberger): Left alone in a Maine cabin, young Brad Porter is befriended and saved by the young Indian, Sabattis.
The Surprise of Their Lives (1957): (RL: Juvenile) Set on Munjoy Hill, in Portland, Maine.

WILSON, Susan

Hawke's Cove (2000): (RL: ) 282 pp.

WOODRUFF, Elvira

The Ghost of Lizard Light (1999): (RL: ages 9-12) Moving from Iowa to a lighthouse cottage in Maine, Jack struggles to live up to his father's high standards and encounters a ghost with a 150-year-old unsolved mystery.

WOON, Yvonne

Dead Beautiful (2010): (RL: YA) Renée Winters of California is put under her estranged grandfather's care after her parents die. He sends her to Gottfried Academy, a boarding school devoted to Latin, philosophy, and a strange mix of sciences, located across the country in Northern Maine. Here she meets fellow student Dante and as she and he grow closer together, a series of suspicious events occurs and students mysteriously die.

WOSMEK, Frances

Mystery of The Eagle's Claw (1979): (RL: Juvenile) When her adoptive parents die, a young girl is sent to live with an old aunt who owns an inn in Maine and finds herself in a dangerous situation when she discovers a conspiracy to defraud her aunt.

WYMAN, Levi Parker

Donald Price's Victory (1930): (RL: Older Juvenile) Exciting story of the Maine lumbering industry. 246 pp.

YAKOWICZ, Susie

Saving the Schooner (2001): (RL: Young adult) Historical novel set at turn of century Kennebec, Maine. Isabel is a brave and resourceful 10-year old, convinced that reopening the family shipyard and completing the schooner abandoned when her brother died will help everyone overcome their grief.

ZSCHOCK, Martha Day

Journey around Maine from A to Z (2007): (RL: K-2) From 'B Boats are built in Bath and Brooklin' to 'V Visitors marvel at Vacationland variety', a friendly chickadee explores the state in this alphabet book. Includes informative text and fun facts.

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