When Obayda's father loses one of his legs in a bomb explosion, the family is forced to relocate from Kabul to a small village, where Obayda's aunt decides to invite good luck by dressing Obayda up as a boy, a bacha posh.

"Franny Chapman just wants some peace. But that's hard to get when her best friend is feuding with her, her sister has disappeared, and her uncle is fighting an old war in his head. Her saintly younger brother is no help, and the cute boy across the street only complicates things. Worst of all, everyone is walking around just waiting for a bomb to fall. It's 1962, and it seems the whole country is living in fear."--Dust jacket flap.

The outer crust is under attack by the subterranean Styx who are turning ordinary humans into walking bombs and incubators for their eggs, and only Will Burrows and his band of retired commandos stand in their way--but the Styx also have problems of their own.

When an earthquake causes the deadly band of air that covers the post World War III Earth to begin to sink over the town of White Rock, twelve-year-old Hope must lead a team through the Bomb's Breath and across the Forbidden Flats to obtain the mineral which will save the town.

With Nazis bombing London every night, it's time for thirteen-year-old Ken to escape. He suspects his stepmother is glad to see him go, but his dad says he's one of the lucky ones - one of ninety evacuee boys and girls to ship out aboard the SS City of Benares to safety in Canada. Life aboard the luxury ship is grand - nine-course meals, new friends, and a life far from the bombs, rations, and his stepmum's glare. Finallly, on the fifth day at sea,...

Firm in her belief that her missing parents will return to the bombed-out circus camp where she lives with a group of "leftover" children, ten-year-old Babo has no desire to leave her war-torn country.