Family Classics

This favorite book for children, based on the author's own youthful experiences, describes the family life of the Marches in a small New England community. Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy are raised in genteel poverty by their loving mother, Marmee, while their father serves as a chaplain during the Civil War. The story explores their domestic adventures, their attempts to increase the family's income, their friendship with the neighboring Laurence family, and their later love affairs and destinies as women.

As if simply being 14 years old wasn't bad enough - what with the usual teenage angst and uncertainty, Vicky Austin's always comforting and reliable home life is changing completely. Her brother John is going off to college in the fall. Maggy, an orphan taken in by the Austins two years ago, has gone to live with her legal guardian. And the rest of Vicky's family is moving from their quiet house in the country to the heart of New York City. But before the big move, the entire Austin family is taking a meandering trip across the country.

She Walks in Beauty draws on poetry’s eloquent wisdom to ponder the many joys and challenges of being a woman. Caroline Kennedy has divided the collection into sections that signify to her the most notable milestones, passages, and universal experiences in a woman’s life, and she begins each of these sections with an introduction in which she explores and celebrates the most important elements of life’s journey.

Professor Godfrey St. Peter is a man in his fifties who has devoted his life to his work, his wife, his garden, and his daughters, and achieved success with all of them. But when St. Peter is called on to move to a new, more comfortable house, something in him rebels. And although at first that rebellion consists of nothing more than mild resistance to his family's wishes, it imperceptibly comes to encompass the entire order of his life.

Beloved by children (and the parents lucky enough to share it with them) since it was first published in 1954, Half Magic is the uproarious tale of four siblings who discover a charm that grants exactly half of whatever they wish for--with results that are twice as predictable (and hilarious) as you might expect.

If you haven't met a Moomin yet, you're in for the most magical fun! The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Tove Jansson's endearing classic, Comet in Moominland, read with warmth (and some lively character voices) by the comedian Hugh Dennis. A comet is speeding towards Earth and nobody knows what to do! Will it destroy everything and everyone? Moomintroll decides to find out.

A little bunny keeps running away from his mother in this imaginary game of hide-and-seek. Children will be profoundly comforted by this lovingly steadfast mother who finds her child every time. The Runaway Bunny, first published in 1942 and never out of print, has indeed become a classic. Generations have fallen in love with the gentle magic of its reassuring words.

Anne is growing up and leaving the Island to spend four years of her life at Redmond College. She meets a wonderful new friend in Philippa Gordon, offspring to an old and exclusive "bluenose" family. Phil's family ties, combined with her beauty and charm, open the gates of all the social cliques and clubs at Redmond. And where Phil went, Anne went. Thus, Anne found her social pathway at Redmond made very easy while other freshettes were doomed to remain on the fringe of things.

Written in classic Alcott style, we see how the boys struggle to overcome their many flaws, in the end learning life's lessons the hard way. Just as the March girls did, each boy must learn to deal with death, love, heartbreak, and the consequences of their actions. Audiences will feel pain and joy alongside each young man as he completes his life journey and fulfills his dreams in this classic conclusion to one of America's most beloved series.

Emma Woodhouse is pretty, clever and rich and sees no reason why she would ever need to get married. But she loves matchmaking for her neighbours, despite the advice of her friend Mr Knightley, who warns her against meddling. Her latest success - the wedding of her governess - makes her certain that she can find the right match for anyone. Can Emma's lucky streak continue? Or will best laid plans unravel...as they always seem to do?

Williston Bibb Barrett is a rather unusual and inquisitive young Southerner with a special gift for cultivating the possibilities of life. He suffers from occasional bouts of amnesia and disconcerting attacks of déjà vu. He clings to certain old-fashioned notions of behavior, and yet he finds himself constantly impelled to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations. And he lives with the secret suspicion that the great world catastrophe that everyone fears will happen has already happened.

Orphaned cousins Jane and Lucilla, both 19, receive the exciting news that their guardian is at last allowing them to leave boarding school. But their rosy future is thwarted when they find he has made some bad investments and fled, leaving them with a cottage in the English countryside and a modest bank account.

Sara Stanley is only 14, but she can weave tales that are impossible to resist. In the charming town of Carlisle, children and grown-ups alike flock from miles around to hear her spellbinding tales. And when Bev King and his younger brother Felix arrive for the summer, they, too, are captivated by the "Story Girl"....

This is the charming, human account of the adventures of lovely, wealthy Rose Campbell as she grows into young womanhood. Rose's greatest attraction undoubtedly is that she's such a real girl. She has her trials and disappointments, her temptations and failures. But with the aid of loving counsel and a level head she manages to turn out into a thoroughly lovable, admirable woman.

This is the story of a boy's adventures growing up in a small town on the banks of the Mississippi river over 100 years ago. The cheerful, adventurous hero plays truant to form a pirate band and, together with his best friend, Huckleberry Finn, finds fun, excitement, and buried treasure along the shores of the great river.

Pudd'nhead Wilson, like many other Mark Twain books, was read aloud by the author to his wife and daughters, chapter by chapter, as it was being written.

The entire family is thrown into turmoil, however, when a carriage accident threatens the life and sanity of Grandpa Dinsmore and Aunt Enna, and Violet is burned with a troublesome secret. Everyone in the family is thrilled as young Elsie blossoms under the warmth of new love, but sorrow strikes as Lily is gathered into the arms of the Good Shepherd despite all the efforts to save her life.

Grandma's house was a magical place, and in this vivid memoir, Donald Davis makes it possible for each of us to go back to our own grandma's kitchen, clutter room, living room, and to that immeasurable bed that seemed to swallow us whole. This selection also contains a traditional story Davis learned from his grandmother, one handed down through his family from generations who once lived in Scotland before coming to the Appalachian mountains, about the time that fortune-seeker named Jack made the king mad.

Anne Shirley has come a long way since her days as a mischievous orphan living in the house at Green Gables. She is now 18 and headed to faraway Redmond College in Kingsport. Anne's college years are sure to be full of fun, but they will also be a time for soul-searching and big decisions. When her longtime friend Gilbert Blythe proposes, Anne feels they can never be more than friends. But is her new admirer, the handsome and wealthy Roy Gardner, really the man of her dreams?

Generations of young readers continue to fall in love with Marguerite Henry’s “horse stories.” In one of her most famous, King of the Wind, the author traces the ancestry of the great Kentucky Derby winner, Man o’ War, whose mysterious pedigree is linked to the noble line leading from the Godolphin Arabian.