Family Life Classics

"For many days we had been tempest-tossed...the raging storm increased in fury until on the seventh day all hope was lost." So begins this delightful adventure story. The Robinson family, a Swiss pastor, his wife, and four sons, will emerge alive from this terrible storm, bringing to land two dogs and a shipload of livestock: hens, pigeons, and geese.

William Stoner is born at the end of the 19th century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar's life, far different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments.

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!"

A literary icon sometimes seen as a bridge between the Beat Generation and the hippies, Ken Kesey scored an unexpected hit with his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. His successful follow-up, Sometimes a Great Notion, was also transformed into a major motion picture, directed by and starring Paul Newman. Here, Oregon’s Stamper family does what it can to survive a bitter strike dividing their tiny logging community. And as tensions rise, delicate family bonds begin to fray and unravel.

A widow with a small army of suitors, Aurora Greenway loves the limelight. She’s got three grandchildren whom she adores (in small doses) and her son-in-law Flap, whom she’s not really crazy about. And there’s her daughter Emma. In some ways, Emma is all there ever was. Now, there’s little time left to say the things that need to be said.

The five Pepper children - Ben, Polly, Dave, Joel, and Phronsie - have secret plans to surprise their mother on her birthday. But how can they make those plans come true without any money? Ever since Mr. Pepper died, the Peppers have been so poor that they can’t even afford Christmas. Through all their misadventures, however, the Peppers are rich in love. From measles to monkeys, from brown bread to birthday cakes, their little house always rings with laughter and hope. Then, just when terrible tragedy nearly strikes the five little Peppers, a mysterious boy named Jasper King stumbles into their lives.

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 narratives. And when Bev King and his younger brother, Felix, arrive for the summer, they, too, are captivated by the Story Girl.

This magnificent novel - which secured for its author the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature - is now available to contemporary American audiences. Although it is set in the early 20th century, it recalls both Iceland's medieval epics and such classics as Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter. And if Bjartur of Summerhouses, the book's protagonist, is an ordinary sheep farmer, his flinty determination to achieve independence is genuinely heroic and, at the same time, terrifying and bleakly comic.

Rilla Blythe, youngest daughter of Anne, is almost 15 in 1914. As her brothers and friends prepare to go off to battle, the irrepressible Rilla realizes that she will be changed forever and the world will never be the same.

Elsie Dinsmore is an endearing 8-year-old girl with several bewildering problems. She has never known her mother, who died when Elsie was a baby, and she longs for a close, loving relationship with her father. He, however, has sent her off to be raised at Roselands, his brother's Southern plantation, where her teacher, Miss Day, harshly criticizes her and her cousins tease her relentlessly.

Some places are too good to be true. Under a pink moon, there is a perfect little town not found on any map. In that town, there are quiet streets lined with pretty houses, houses that conceal the strangest things. After a couple years of hard traveling, ex-cop Mona Bright inherits her long-dead mother's home in Wink, New Mexico. And the closer Mona gets to her mother's past, the more she understands that the people of Wink are very, very different....

Thirteen-year-old Catherine Cabot Hall put ink to the first unblemished page of her diary on October 17, 1830, the day after her father returned from Boston with the diary tucked conspicuously under his arm. Catherine's mother had died of fever four years before, and now Catherine performed the duties of housewife and mother, living contentedly with her father and younger sister, Matty, on their New Hampshire farm. In spite of the daily hardships, Catherine had much to be thankful for, especially for Cassie, her dearest friend.

The four Melendy children live with their father and Cuffy, their beloved housekeeper, in a worn but comfortable brownstone in New York City. There's thirteen-year-old Mona, who has decided to become an actress; twelve-year-old mischievous Rush; ten-year-old Randy who loves to dance and paint; and thoughtful Oliver, who is just six-years-old.

Wilmet Forsyth is bored. Bored with the everyday routine of her life. Bored with teatimes filled with local gossip. Bored with her husband, Rodney, a civil servant who dotes on her. But on her 33rd birthday, Wilmet's conventional life takes a turn when she runs into the handsome brother of her close friend. Attractive and enigmatic, Piers Longridge is a mystery Wilmet is determined to solve. Rather than settling down, he lived in Portugal, then returned to England for a series of odd jobs. Driven by a fantasy of romance, the sheltered, naïve Englishwoman sets out to seduce Piers.

The adventures of Laura Ingalls and her family continue as they move from their little house on the banks of Plum Creek to the wilderness of the unsettled Dakota Territory. Here Pa works on the new railroad until he finds a homestead claim that is perfect for their new little house. Laura takes her first train ride as she, her sisters, and their mother come out to live with Pa on the shores of Silver Lake. After a lonely winter in the surveyors' house, Pa puts up the first building in what will soon be a brand-new town on the beautiful shores of Silver Lake.

The little settlement that weathered the long, hard winter of 1880-81 is now a growing town. Laura is growing up, and she goes to her first evening social. Mary is at last able to go to a college for the blind. Best of all, Almanzo Wilder asks permission to walk home from church with Laura. And Laura, now 15 years old, receives her certificate to teach school.

Set in Mississippi at the height of the Depression, this is the story of one family's struggle to maintain their integrity, pride, and independence in the face of racism and social injustice. And it is also Cassie's story - Cassie Logan, an independent girl who discovers over the course of an important year why having land of their own is so crucial to the Logan family, even as she learns to draw strength from her own sense of dignity and self-respect.

Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert decide to adopt a young boy to help on the farm. All of Avonlea is shocked and surprised when Anne Shirley arrives and takes the little community by storm. The first of the series written by Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables is the heartwarming tale of how imagination and love transform the hardest of hearts and stiffest of spines.

Following up on the classic children's novel The Saturdays, Elizabeth Enright continues the engaging tale of the Melendy family (Mona, Rush, Randy, Oliver, Father, and Cuffy, the housekeeper) and their move from an old brownstone in New York City to a charming house in the country. Called the Four-Story Mistake for its odd look and confused architectural history, the house offers the Melendys wonderful quirks and surprises.

A Signature Performance: Oscar nominee and passionate vegan Casey Affleck highlights the more-relevant-than-ever issues of business ethics and food production in Upton Sinclair’s meatpacking industry bombshell.