Del Norte Public Library

"On an autumn day, in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, two boys were born in England, one to a poor family by the name of Canty who lived in Offal Court, not far from London Bridge, and the other to a wealthy and high-placed family by the name of Tudor. Young Tom Canty, unwanted, unloved, began his day-dreaming early in order to forget the petty stealing to which he was forced by his cruel rogue of a father--and the royal Court and young...

"I ain't knocked round the city streets all my life for nothin'," proclaims Ragged Dick, the fast-talking boy hero of Horatio Alger's classic rags-to-riches tale. Dick is a plucky street boy who smokes, gambles, and speaks ungrammatically--but he is also honest and hardworking, striving not for wealth and status, but for a steady job, a decent place to sleep, and respectability. A quintessential boy's novel of adventure, romance, and coming of age,...

Great Expectations is Charles Dickens's thirteenth novel. It is his second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person. Great Expectations is a bildungsroman, or a coming-of-age novel, and it is a classic work of Victorian literature. It depicts the growth and personal development of an orphan named Pip. The novel was first published in serial form in Dickens's weekly periodical All the Year Round, from 1 December 1860...

"A searing and profound Southern odyssey by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward. In Jesmyn Ward's first novel since her National Book Award-winning Salvage the Bones, this singular American writer brings the archetypal road novel into rural twenty-first-century America. Drawing on Morrison and Faulkner, The Odyssey and the Old Testament, Ward gives us an epochal story, a journey through Mississippi's past and present that is both an intimate portrait...

Mansfield Park is a study of three families - the Bertrams, the Crawfords, and the Prices - with the isolated figure of the heroine, Fanny price, at its centre. Fanny's quiet passivity, her steadfast loyalty, and love for the son of the family who regard her as the poor relation, and who have taken her under their roof, are among the qualities whose true worth is not appreciated until they are tried against the brilliant and witty Mary and Henry Crawford,...

On a small Kansas farm in 1890, Christina Willems lovingly shepherds a group of displaced individuals who have come to see the Brambleville Asylum for the Poor as their home. But when a kitchen fire leaves the house uninhabitable, she must find shelter for all in her care, scattering her dear "family." Christina is forced to approach Levi Johnson, a reclusive mill owner, to take in a young blind boy named Tommy Kilgore. Levi agrees with reluctance,...

Young Tess Durbeyfield attempts to restore her family's fortunes by claiming their connection with the aristocratic d'Urbervilles. But Alec d'Urberville is a rich wastrel who seduces her and makes her life miserable. When Tess meets Angel Clare, she is offered true love and happiness, but her past catches up with her and she faces an agonizing moral choice...

"When A Christmas Carol was first published in 1843 it was an overnight success, and set a precedent that was to be followed by other Christmas books, including The Chimes (1844) and The Cricket (1845). Each book was published at the same time of year, in the same format, and extolled similar values about the virtues of love, charity and the family unit. But none would achieve the cult status of A Christmas Carol, a book so popular it has become part...

Belle Teal Harper's entrance into fifth-grade in the early 1960s brings many changes and challenges as her Gran's memory begins to slip, her mom spends long hours away at work, and her class gets two new students, including an African-American boy who is caught in the middle of the fight over desegregation.