Bella at Midnight

by Diane Stanley

  We never saw Allison again after that.

  But I, for one, never forgot her. She was the perfect Allbright product: smart, beautiful, accomplished, and confident—all the things I longed to be. And I remember wondering if it was the school that had made her that way.

  If I got in, would Allbright work its magic on me, too?

  BACK AD

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo courtesy of the author

  DIANE STANLEY is the author and illustrator of beloved books for young readers, including SAVING SKY, which ALA Booklist, in a starred review, called “beautifully written” and noted that “parallels to our contemporary times appear on every page. . . . The young people manifest a courage few can emulate”; BELLA AT MIDNIGHT, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and an ALA Booklist Editor’s Choice; THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF THE ALLBRIGHT ACADEMY; THE MYSTERIOUS MATTER OF I. M. FINE; and A TIME APART. Well known as the author and illustrator of award-winning picture-book biographies, she is the recipient of the Washington Post–Children’s Book Guild Nonfiction Award for the body of her work.

  Ms. Stanley has also written and illustrated numerous picture books, including three creatively reimagined fairy tales: THE GIANT AND THE BEANSTALK, GOLDIE AND THE THREE BEARS, and RUMPELSTILTSKIN’S DAUGHTER. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. You can visit her online at www.dianestanley.com.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors and artists.

  CREDITS

  Cover art © 2006 by Bagram Ibatoulline

  Cover design by Amy Ryan

  COPYRIGHT

  BELLA AT MIDNIGHT. Text copyright © 2006 by Diane Stanley. Illustrations copyright © 2006 by Bagram Ibatoulline. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  www.harpercollinschildrens.com

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stanley, Diane.

  Bella at midnight / Diane Stanley ; illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Raised by peasants, Bella discovers that she is actually the daughter of a knight and finds herself caught up in a terrible plot that will change her life and the kingdom forever.

  ISBN 978-0-06-077575-9 (pbk.)

  EPub Edition April 2014 ISBN 9780062044174

  [1. Knights and knighthood—Fiction. 2. Princes—Fiction. 3. Kings, queens, rulers, etc.—Fiction. 4. Sex role—Fiction.] I. Ibatoulline, Bagram, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.S7869Bel 2006 2005005906

  [Fic]—dc22

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  First Harper edition, 2008

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