Family Life Classics

The most acclaimed Scottish novel of all time, Sunset Song is a powerful portrait of a land and people in turmoil, seen through the life and struggles of its heroine, Chris Guthrie. In the years up to and beyond the First World War, Chris' resilience, like the land itself, endures despite everything and is portrayed with a lyrical intensity that echoes through the years and still resonates today.

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?

January 1948 began a wonderful year for the Lechows. With Father newly returned to Western Germany from a Russian prison camp, they were together again and could enjoy a measure of security and happiness in The Ark, their railroad car home on Rowan Farm. It was a year that held for sixteen-year-old Margret in particular, both joy and sorrow. She found real satisfaction in entering Mrs. Almut's Great Danes in two important shows and in raising several young animals which were her very own.

Let Jamie Beck transport you to the South of France with An American in Provence: part art book, part travelogue, part memoir, and part cookbook, and perfect for art lovers, Francophiles, and armchair travelers alike. An American in Provence is a beautiful collection of exquisite portrait...

More than three decades have passed since the events described in John Updike’s The Witches of Eastwick. The three divorcées–Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie–have left town, remarried, and become widows. They cope with their grief and solitude as widows do: they travel the world, to such...

Edgewood Rectory may be set in an ancient landscape, but the Grantly family are very much of their time. Caught up in the uncertain world that has emerged since the outbreak of peace, the Rector and Mrs Grantly are bewildered by the challenges facing their eldest children: Eleanor, longing for more excitement than can be found in the Red Cross Library; and Tom, struggling to readjust to student life at Oxford after his military service.

Ben has been tramping for two weeks when he's discovered, nearly starving, by a widow and her two little girls. Mrs. Moss feeds and clothes him and gets him a job with the local Squire. But herding cows is boring for an active boy and he's about to take to the road again when the lovely Miss Celia, owner of the Big House (bordered by lilacs!) arrives and hires him to do odd jobs and be the company for her teenage invalid brother.

In the seventh book of the Anne of Green Gables series, Anne and Gilbert Blythe have been happily married for over a decade and have six children. The children take center stage in this story, as they befriend the four children of a new minister in tow, John Meredith. After John’s wife died, he has buried himself into theological studies, and lets his children run free. And though the children are generally kind and loyal, the townsfolk only really notice them on the occasions where they’re getting into trouble.

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!"

It's the summer of 1947, and peacetime has brought new challenges to Barsetshire. Beliers Priory, once a military hospital during the War, has now become a flourishing preparatory school for boys run by Leslie and Philip Winter. When Charles Belton is hired as the new school master, six young people are thrown together in a web of flirtations and misunderstandings: Charles and his elder brother, Naval Captain Freddy Belton; Susan Dean, now Red Cross Depot Librarian, and her glamorous sister Jessica, an actress in thrall to the theatre; pragmatic Lucy Marling and her brother Oliver.

One of Elizabeth Bowen's most artful and psychologically acute novels, The House in Paris is a timeless masterpiece of nuance and atmosphere, and represents the very best of Bowen's celebrated oeuvre. When eleven-year-old Henrietta arrives at the Fishers' well-appointed house in Paris, she is prepared to spend her day between trains looked after by an old friend of her grandmother's. Henrietta longs to see a few sights in the foreign city; little does she know what fascinating secrets the Fisher house itself contains.

As a young girl Sandy Price dreamed of owning a pony like Misty of Chincoteague. Journeying to Chincoteague for the annual pony penning, a grown Sandy decides to make her dream come true. At the end of the auction she brings home not just one but four beautiful ponies, including Sunshine, a direct descendant of Misty. When Twilight, Sunshine’s foal, first appears from her stall, the fire of the wild ponies of Assateague is in her eyes. She races and rears herself into a lather, bucking at even the temporary confinement when the farrier examines her hooves.

Historic Prince Edward Island in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence is the scene of this charming romance, which has captivated generations of readers young and old. Anne, the orphan child who brings happiness and love into the lives of her foster parents, is one of the most beloved heroines in all literature. But life was not kind to her at the start of her great adventure. For when Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, living alone, decided to adopt a child from the local orphanage, they asked for a boy.

An insightful story about a happily married woman who takes over her husband’s business upon his early death and creates a prospering business with seed capital from a childhood friend. She maintains her beliefs and avocations while doing the hard work of farming.

Adam Bates, the Land King of Hartley, Indiana, rules his 16 children with a firm hand and a tight purse. All work tirelessly on the family farm until the sons, at 21, are given 200 acres of land with a house and barn (they pay the taxes while their father holds the deeds). The daughters, at 18, get a term at Normal School to train as schoolteachers, a position they hold until they marry. Kate, the youngest, has always bristled at her father's preference for his sons but eagerly awaits her chance for further education. Her father has other plans.

Eight-year-old Elsie Dinsmore is enjoying a blissful Christmas holiday season with her family and friends when a crisis arises that threatens life as she knows it. She believes that obeying a request her father has made would violate her conscience, and she must refuse him. He, in turn, believes Elsie is being willful and disobedient, and he fails to see her refusal as a matter of her deep, abiding faith in God.

From the beloved New York Times– bestselling author, a quintessential Nick Hornby tale of music, superfandom, and the truths and lies we tell ourselves about life and love. Now a major motion picture starring Ethan Hawke. Annie loves Duncan—or thinks she does. Duncan loves Annie, but then...

Considered by Time magazine to be one of the best fantasy books of all time, Edith Nesbit's Five Children and It follows a tribe of children on their magical adventures during a summer in the English countryside. When a strange, furry creature appears in front of the children and offers a wish a day, the children take advantage of the creature's abilities and discover that their wishes have many unforeseen - and often quite funny - consequences.

As Elsie Dinsmore grows up and becomes a young woman, her family undergoes major changes. Her father, Horace Dinsmore, falls in love and marries sweet Rose Allison, whom Elsie has loved since childhood. Soon two new members, Horace Jr. and Rosebud, join the happy family.

Published in 1871, Little Men is a sequel to the novel, Little Women. It tells the continuing story of Jo March, who has married Professor Bhaer, with whom she now runs a small school.