Family Life Classics

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.

Seventeen years after falling from a stolen car into a remote northern town, Billie Jean Fontaine is still an outsider. She may follow the stifling rules of this odd place, but no one will forget that she came from elsewhere. When Billie Jean vanishes one cold October night in her bare feet and track suit with only her truck keys, those closest to her begin a frantic search. Her daughter, Pony, a girl struggling against being a teen in the middle of nowhere; her killer dog to whom she cannot tell a lie; her husband, The Heavy, a man haunted by his past; and more....

Raison et Sentiments: À la suite du décès de leur père, les soeurs Dashwood et leur mère, injustement privées de leur héritage, sont contraintes de réduire drastiquement leur train de vie et de quitter leur propriété pour s’installer dans le Devonshire, à Barton Cottage. Orgueil et Préjugés: Dans un petit village d'Angleterre, Mrs Bennet ne songe qu'à marier ces cinq filles. La nouvelle de l'installation à Netherfield, le domaine voisin, de Mr Bingley, célibataire et beau parti, suscite une agitation toute particulière chez toutes les jeunes filles des alentours.

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.

When Sally's family moves to Miami Beach for the winter of 1947, she is excited and nervous at the same time. What will school be like in Florida? Will she make any friends? Will she fit in so far away from home?

It's a hard-knock life for America's favorite orphan! Everyone knows the story of the irrepressible Annie, who lives at Miss Hannigan's orphanage until she beats the odds and finds a new life with the benevolent and wealthy Daddy Warbucks. Annie has enchanted millions of fans from her original comic strip appearance to the hit Broadway musical. Now, with a Tony-nominated revival playing on Broadway, Puffin is reissuing this novelization of the classic story, with a new introduction by Tony and Emmy Award-winning author Thomas Meehan.

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?

Nick hadn't planned on being the prodigal son. But when his father dies and leaves half of Silver Buckle, the Noble family ranch, to Nick's former best friend, he must return home to face those he left behind - and to make sure that the Silver Buckle stays in the Noble family.

When the Shepards' car breaks down in pre-World War II New York City, a chain of events occurs that transforms the lives of the Shepards and the Drakes, as Evan and Rachel meet, court, and marry. But betrayal, disappointment, and secret schemes are on the horizon....

Louisa May Alcott's classic novel, set during the Civil War, has always captivated even the most reluctant listeners. Little girls, especially, love following the adventures of the four March sisters - Meg, Beth, Amy, and most of all, the tomboy, Jo - as they experience the joys and disappointments, tragedies and triumphs, of growing up. This simpler version captures all the charm and warmth of the original.

Summer, 1947. Kate Herrick, a war widow, returns to her childhood home for a final visit before the house is sold. But Rose Cottage is not the idyllic paradise she remembers from her youth and someone has been there before her. As Kate uncovers an old secret that haunts the home she thought she knew, she is forced to confront a dark truth from her own past.... Beyond the weedy garden with its riot of rose bushes, nothing had changed. And someone was crossing the bridge to approach the garden gate. Someone I knew well....

Adrian Mole is 39 and a quarter. Due to his financial situation he has been forced to move next door to his parents. And his numerous nightly visits to the lavatory lead him to suspect prostate trouble. As his worries multiply, a phone call to his old flame ignites powerful memories and makes him wonder - is she the only one who can save him now?

Lida Fisher knows that her beloved husband, Quincy, will die soon as the result of a rare and terrible brain rejection syndrome. But there is one hope. If Quincy consents to switch brains with one of the alien beings that have arrived from the other side of the galaxy, he will live on - albeit in the body of a starfish. And that means Lida must agree to let a new man into her life and her bed, one with the face and body of her adored husband but with the mind of an alien stranger.

During the reign of Richard I, Wilfred of Ivanhoe earns his father's disapproval by falling in love with Rowena, his father's ward. His father had planned to wed her himself, and reestablish the Saxon line.

Accordion Crimes opens in 1890 in Sicily as an accordion maker completes his finest instrument and dreams of owning a music store in America. He and his eleven-year-old son, carrying little more than the accordion, travel to New Orleans. Within a year, the accordion maker is murdered by an anti-Italian lynching mob, but his instrument carries Proulx's story as it falls into the hands of various immigrants who carry it from Iowa to Texas, from Maine to Louisiana, looking for a decent life.

Each year along the Eastern seacoast, the wild ponies of Assateague Island are driven across a narrow strip of ocean to Chincoteague. There the shaggy, untamed ponies are sold. When young Paul and Maureen Beebe rescue a drowning newborn foal, they take her home to nearby Pony Farm. Now the foal has grown into their free-spirited pony, Misty, and has been the subject of a popular children's book.

In the town of Placid, Wisconsin, in 1871, Georgie Burkhardt is known for two things: her uncanny aim with a rifle and her habit of speaking her mind plainly. But when Georgie blurts out something she shouldn't, her older sister Agatha flees, running off with a pack of "pigeoners" trailing the passenger pigeon migration. And when the sheriff returns to town with an unidentifiable body - wearing Agatha's blue-green ball gown - everyone assumes the worst.... Except Georgie.

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.

In December 1930, just before Christmas, the Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, social circuit is electrified with parties and dances. At the center of the social elite stand Julian and Caroline English. But in one rash moment born inside a highball glass, Julian breaks with polite society and begins a rapid descent toward self-destruction.

A father's wounded heart. A mother's patient love. An eager boy, an impetuous girl, and, above all, the healing power of nature. These are the classic ingredients that fill Virginia Sorensen's Newbery Award-winning novel with a tender power and lift it to classic status.