Family Classics

Soon to be an original movie on Disney+. The beloved 2014 Newbery Medal winner by former National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Kate DiCamillo. Holy unanticipated occurrences! It begins, as the best superhero stories do, with a tragic accident that has unexpected consequences...

Penguin presents Happy Families: The Audio Collection by Allan Ahlberg, read by Alexander Armstrong. Families come in all shapes and sizes. Listen to the story of Mrs Wobble the Waitress, Mr Biff the Boxer, Miss Dirt the Dustman's Daughter and many more in the first ever audio collection of Allan Ahlberg's beloved Happy Families. Features 11 classic tales brought to life with music and dazzling sound effects.

Rilla, almost 15, can't think any further ahead than going to her very first dance at the Four Winds lighthouse and getting her first kiss from handsome Kenneth Ford. But undreamed-of challenges await the irrepressible Rilla when the world of Ingleside becomes endangered by a far-off war. Her brothers go off to fight, and Rilla brings home an orphaned newborn in a soup tureen. She is swept into a drama that tests her courage and leaves her changed forever.

One of Canada’s most accomplished authors combines the best qualities of both the short story and the novel to create a lyrical evocation of the beauty, pain, and wonder of growing up. In eight interconnected, finely wrought stories, Margaret Laurence recreates the world of Vanessa MacLeod –...

John Conlan is nicknamed “The Bathroom Bomber” after setting off firecrackers in the boys’ bathroom 23 times without getting caught. John and his best friend, Lorraine, can never please their parents, and school is a chore. To pass the time, they play pranks on unsuspecting people, and it's during one of these pranks that they meet the “Pigman”. In spite of themselves, John and Lorraine soon get caught up in Mr. Pignati’s zest for life. In fact, they become so involved that they begin to destroy the only corner of the world that has ever mattered to them. Can they stop before it’s too late?

NATIONAL BEST SELLER From the beloved author of Inheritance: "a haunting, moving, and propulsive exploration of family secrets” (Meg Wolitzer, author of The Interestings) Two families. One night. A constellation of lives changed forever. A TIME Best Fiction Book of the Year A...

Pollyanna, an expert at her favorite "Glad Game" of always looking at the bright side in her numerous trials, is one of the most popular and enduring characters in all of children's literature. As Pollyanna arrives in Beldingsville to live with her strict and dutiful maiden aunt, she exclaims, "Oh, Aunt Polly, I don't know how to be glad enough that you let me come to live with you!"

When mariner Robinson Crusoe sails from London to the African coast to Brazil, his unpredictable voyage takes a catastrophic course. The lone survivor of a shipwreck, he washes ashore on an Atlantic island. Resourceful and determined to contend with providence and nature, he finds his sovereignty empowering. Through the years he builds a civilization as a solitary man. Then he discovers a stranger’s footprint in the sand.

From the author of The Other Einstein, the mesmerizing tale of what kind of woman could have inspired an American dynasty. Clara Kelley is not who they think she is. She's not the experienced Irish maid who was hired to work in one of Pittsburgh's grandest households. She's a poor farmer's...

Elizabeth Ann is being carefully brought up by her Aunt Frances. Aunt Frances shares in all Elizabeth Ann's fears and slights, walks her to and from school each day, and conscientiously follows the most modern theories on child-rearing. She is the original helicopter parent. Not surprisingly, at nine years old Elizabeth Ann is timid and shy, friendless, and completely dependent on her doting aunt. Then an emergency occurs, and the fearful little girl is temporarily sent to other relatives who live on a farm in Vermont.

The international bestselling novel sold in 21 countries, about grief, mourning, and the joy of survival, inspired by a real phone booth in Japan with its disconnected “wind” phone, a place of pilgrimage and solace since the 2011 tsunami When Yui loses both her mother and her daughter in the...

“Something good” is exactly what Tyya, Andrew and Julie want to put into their shopping cart. Tyya’s dad won’t buy anything good at the store—no ice cream, no candy, no cookies. But when the saleslady puts a price sticker on Tyya’s nose, Daddy is finally forced to buy something good.

In this famous fairytale, the three little pigs remind us that the easiest way, the one that requires less work, is not always the right one. If you want to get something satisfying, you have to give it some commitment.

Schooldays at St Clare's are never dull for twins Pat and Isabel O'Sullivan in Enid Blyton's much-loved boarding school series. In book seven, Eileen's mother is the new matron, and Mam'zelle's niece, Claudine, joins St Clare's and causes havoc wherever she goes. The twins are enchanted by rebellious Claudine and her madcap plans, but will she last the term? Expect more mischief at St Clare's!

The winsome Anne Shirley is grown, has married her beloved Gilbert, and is the mother of six frolicsome children. Anne and her family experience some unimaginable events when a strange family moves into a nearby mansion. The Meredith family is comprised of two boys and two girls, a minister father but no mother, and a runaway girl named Mary Vance.

In this remarkable debut novel, a boy’s bittersweet passage to maturity and sexual awakening is set against escalating political tensions in Sri Lanka, during the seven years leading up to the 1983 riots. Arjie Chelvaratnam is a Tamil boy growing up in an extended family in Colombo. It is...

Briseis has a gift: she can grow plants from tiny seeds to rich blooms with a single touch. When Briseis’ aunt dies and wills her a dilapidated estate in rural New York, Bri and her parents decide to leave Brooklyn behind for the summer. Hopefully there, surrounded by plants and flowers, Bri will finally learn to control her gift. But their new home is sinister in ways they could never have imagined - it comes with a specific set of instructions, an old-school apothecary and a walled garden filled with the deadliest botanicals in the world.

Julie thinks her new neighbors must be very scary because all the stuff being moved into their house is enormous. Then she meets David and finds out that he's just a normal, regular boy. But when David's father calls him for supper the sound makes Julie jump in the air, run in a circle three times, run home and lock herself in her room until it is time for breakfast the next day. Could David's father be a giant?

ABSALOM, ABSALOM! tells the story of Thomas Sutpen, the enigmatic stranger who came to Jefferson township in the early 1830s. With a French architect and a band of wild Haitians, he wrung a fabulous plantation out of the muddy bottoms of the north Mississippi wilderness. Sutpen was a man...

A Newbery Medal Winner Awarded the John Newbery Medal as "the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children" in the year of its publication. "A road's a kind of holy thing," said Roger the Minstrel to his son, Adam. "That's why it's a good work to keep a road in repair...