Books that have (or may) become classics for readers of all ages.
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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou The author recalls the anguish of her childhood in Arkansas and her adolescence in northern slums. Catalog Link |
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The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett Ten-year -old Mary comes to live in a lonely house on the Yorkshire moors and discovers an invalid cousin and an abandoned garden. Catalog Link |
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The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon In 1939 New York City, Joe Kavalier, a refugee from Hitler’s Prague, joins forces with his Brooklyn-born cousin, Sammy Clay, to create comic-book superheroes inspired by their own fantasies, fears and dreams. Catalog Link |
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House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III When a former colonel of the Iranian Air Force and his family purchase a small California home at auction, they are faced with a great conflict as the former owner and her police officer boyfriend fight to get it back at any cost. Catalog Link |
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Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies by Laura Esquivel Despite the fact that she has fallen in love with a young man, Tita, the youngest of three daughters born to a tyrannical rancher, must obey tradition and remain single and at home to care for her mother. Catalog Link |
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The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald A young man, newly rich, tries to recapture the past and win back his former love, despite the fact that she has married. Catalog Link |
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The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver The family of a Baptist missionary begins to unravel after they embark on a 1959 mission to the Belgian Congo, where they find their lives transformed over the course of three decades. Catalog Link |
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The Call of the Wild by Jack London Thrown into a life-and-death struggle on the frozen Arctic wilderness, Buck learns many hard lessons as a sled dog: the lesson of the leash, of the cold, of near-starvation and cruelty. And the greatest lesson of all: the power of love and loyalty. Catalog Link |
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Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery Brings to life the story of Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan who is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her. Catalog Link |
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The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath Esther Greenwood, a talented and successful writer, finally succumbs to madness when the world around her begins to falter. Catalog Link |
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Anthem by Ayn Rand Equality 7-2521 is a man apart. Since the Great Rebirth it has been a crime in his world to think or act as an individual. Even love is forbidden. Yet, since his childhood in the Home of the Infants, Equality 7-2521 has felt that he is different. Catalog Link |
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The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery An aviator whose plane is forced down in the Sahara Desert encounters a little prince from a small planet who relates his adventures in seeking the secret of what is important in life. Catalog Link |
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The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt During the 1967 school year, on Wednesday afternoons when all his classmates go to either Catechism or Hebrew school, seventh-grader Holling Hoodhood stays in Mrs. Baker’s classroom where they read the plays of William Shakespeare. Catalog Link |
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare A young girl from Barbados visits her Puritan relatives in Connecticut only to become the object of a seventeenth-century witch hunt. Catalog Link |
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Huckleberry Finn and runaway slave, Jim, escape from their tormentors and head down the Mississippi River with adventure and trouble close at hand. Catalog Link |
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Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne In 1872 Phileas Fogg wins a bet by traveling around the world in seventy-nine days, twenty-three hours, and fifty-seven minutes. Catalog Link |
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Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton A New England farmer must choose between his duty to care for his invalid wife and his love for her cousin. Catalog Link |
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The Book Thief by Markus Zusak Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel—a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors. Catalog Link |