Family Classics

Alien invaders take one of America’s most contentious issues, Gun Control, and use it for their interest.

It's 1953 and 11-year-old Penny dreams of a summer of butter pecan ice cream, swimming, and baseball. But nothing's that easy in Penny's family. For starters, she can't go swimming because her mother's afraid she'll catch polio at the pool. To make matters worse, her favorite uncle is living in a car. Her Nonny cries every time her father's name is mentioned. And the two sides of her family aren?t speaking to each other!

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.

Lucy Maud Montgomery's classic tale, with its engaging heroine and evocative description of the Prince Edward Island landscape, never fails to delight youngsters. When Matthew Cuthbert goes to the train station to pick up the orphan he and his sister Marilla plan to adopt, he expects to meet a boy who can help on the family farm. Instead it's Anne - a talkative, dreamy, red-haired, freckle-faced 11-year-old little girl who transforms the Cuthberts' life forever and fills it with love and joy.

Pride and Prejudice is a novel of manners by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character, Elizabeth Bennet, as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education, and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of the British Regency. Elizabeth is the second of five daughters of a country gentleman living near the fictional town of Meryton in Hertfordshire, near London.

Elizabeth Gaskell's novella The Moorland Cottage takes place near the town of Combehurst where Mrs. Browne lives with her children, Edward and Maggie, and their servant, Nancy. Near the Brownes' cottage lives the Bruxton family in a luxurious mansion. The two families grow closer with time and the author shows how childhood education and growing up shape and effect the adult personality.

Pregnant with her second child, Martha King finds her marriage to lawyer Austin King more and more frustrating when her husband befriends his young foster cousin, Nora, and, in the process, unwittingly jeopardizes his marriage, career, and place in the community.

With just one bite, a wakeful flea atop a pile of sleeping creatures causes a commotion.

This is the charming, human account of the adventures of lovely, wealthy Rose Campbell as she grows into young womanhood. Rose's greatest attraction undoubtedly is that she's such a real girl. She has her trials and disappointments, her temptations and failures. But with the aid of loving counsel and a level head she manages to turn out into a thoroughly lovable, admirable woman.

One of the world's best-loved stories of shipwreck and survival, The Swiss Family Robinson portrays a family's struggle to create a new life for themselves on a strange and fantastic tropical island. Blown off course by a raging storm, the family - a Swiss pastor, his wife, their four young sons, plus two dogs and a shipload of livestock - must rely on one another in order to adapt to their needs the natural wonders of their exotic new home.

Generations of young readers continue to fall in love with Marguerite Henry’s “horse stories.” In one of her most famous, King of the Wind, the author traces the ancestry of the great Kentucky Derby winner, Man o’ War, whose mysterious pedigree is linked to the noble line leading from the Godolphin Arabian.

With renewed interest in Alexander Key's extraordinary 1968 novel, fans can dive into Escape to Witch Mountain as it was meant to be listened to. The powerful, thrilling story of Tony and Tia - twins joined by their paranormal gifts, on the run from evil forces that seek to suppress their forgotten pasts - is more gripping and relevant than ever.

While riding in their homemade iceboat on the frozen surface of Barmet Bay, Frank and Joe Hardy and Chet Morton discuss their plans for the upcoming Christmas holiday break. They visit Cabin Island but a mysterious stranger chases them off the island. The boys are invited to the home of Elroy Jefferson, a man whose car they returned in The Shore Road Mystery. They overhear an argument between Jefferson, the owner of Cabin Island, and Hanleigh, who is trying to buy the island. Mr. Jefferson rewards the boys and grants them permission to use the cabin for Christmas

Taking place three years after The Bean Trees, Taylor is now dating a musician named Jax and has officially adopted Turtle. But when a lawyer for the Cherokee Nation begins to investigate the adoption—their new life together begins to crumble. Depicting the clash between fierce family love and tribal law, poverty and means, abandonment and belonging, Pigs in Heaven is a morally wrenching, gently humorous work of fiction that speaks equally to the head and the heart.

Ex-tax collector and author of two unpopular novels, Bradley Pearson wishes to devote his retirement to writing a masterpiece. But the doorbell and the phone keep ringing and every ring brings with it an ex-wife, a friend in need, a sister in trouble or a young woman seeking a teacher and so dusty, selfish Bradley is plunged into the muddles and mysteries which will end in his doom.

A little bunny keeps running away from his mother in this imaginary game of hide-and-seek. Children will be profoundly comforted by this lovingly steadfast mother who finds her child every time. The Runaway Bunny, first published in 1942 and never out of print, has indeed become a classic. Generations have fallen in love with the gentle magic of its reassuring words.

This is the first complete English-language translation of a classic of Yiddish literature, one of the great comic novels of the 20th century. The Zelmenyaners describes the travails of a Jewish family in Minsk that is torn asunder by the new Soviet reality. Four generations are depicted in riveting and often uproarious detail as they face the profound changes brought on by the demands of the Soviet regime and its collectivist, radical secularism.

Danny has the most marvellous and exciting father anyone ever had. He can repair any car or machine that people bring to him, loves going on adventures with Danny and tells him incredible stories around the stove in the cozy caravan they call home.The land around them belongs to Mr Hazell, a rich bully who NOBODY likes, not one-little bit. So, Danny and his father concoct a daring plot that will give Mr Hazell the greatest shock of his life. But can they pull off this level of mischief-making without getting caught?

The four Grace sisters love their quiet life in the country village of Chevis Green. To some, their insular world might seem dull, but the sisters never seem to run out of conversation, jokes, and pleasant ways to pass the time together. They truly are the happiest of families. That is, until Aunt Rona comes to town. Rona intends to stay with the Graces indefinitely, and her meddlesome attitude immediately sets the sisters' teeth on edge. Throw in another unexpected houseguest, some potential suitors and a case of mistaken intentions, and the members of the Grace family suddenly find themselves quite out of their element.

Charlotte Dean enjoys nothing more than the solitude of her London flat and the monotonous days of her work at a travel bookshop. But when her younger sister unceremoniously bursts into her quiet life one afternoon, Charlotte's world turns topsy-turvy. Beloved author D. E. Stevenson captures the intricacies of post-World War I England with a light, comic touch that perfectly embodies the spirit of the time. Alternatively heartbreaking and witty, The Young Clementina is a touching tale of love, loss and redemption through friendship.