Preview of The Refuge Summary:

Twelve-year-old Barbara Courts is upset that her parents are divorcing. Her father has gone for a new job and a girlfriend in Toronto, leaving Barbara and her mother to move from their fine family home in Edmonton's river valley to a simple apartment in a modest neighborhood. From now on, the two of them will have to make do on what Barbara's mother can earn as a freelance writer.

Barbara misses her old friends and is growing out of her designer clothes. It's a long, hot summer with no music and gym lessons, no movies or shopping, and she blames her mother for arguing with her father. One day when delivering a manuscript to the courier for her mother, Barbara follows a jackrabbit down a narrow passage between two warehouses in an industrial park and finds a high fence across the passage. It hides a vacant lot, fenced...