Family Classics

Classic Starts: The stories are abridged; the quality is complete. The discovery of a neglected garden transforms the life of a sullen and unloved little girl-and everyone around her, too. When the newly orphaned Mary Lennox leaves her native India and arrives at her uncle's mansion in Yorkshire, everything seems strange to her. Then Mary hears of a mysterious garden where no one has set foot in 10 years. With the help of some new friends, she plans to uncover its secrets...and make it blossom once again.

Set on the Mississippi Delta in 1923, this story captures the mind and manners of the Fairchilds, a large aristocratic family, self-contained and elusive as the wind. The vagaries of the Fairchilds are keenly observed, and sometimes harshly judged, by nine-year-old Laura McRaven, a Fairchild cousin who takes The Yellow Dog train to the Delta for Dabney Fairchild’s wedding.

"The Swiss Family Robinson" is an adventure novel co-authored by Johann David Wyss and Johann Rudolf Wyss. It has a plot that exemplifies family ideals and the use of the natural world to achieve self-reliance. The story begins with the family in the hold of a sailing ship, riding out a huge storm. The passengers abandon ship without them, and William and Elizabeth Robinson and their four children (Fritz, Ernest, Jack and Francis) are left to survive on their own. How will they cope?

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.

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?

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.

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.

The Best Year Ever! That's what Ramona thought the fourth grade was going to be, but things aren't turning out as she hoped. Sure, she has a new best friend named Daisy. But how can she improve her spelling as her teacher insists, or be the role model for her baby sister, Roberta, that Mrs. Quimby expects? Fourth-grade life is full of adventure and challenges, and at the end of it all - a "zeroteenth" birthday to celebrate!

Dumas’ famous musketeers return in another exciting swashbuckler. And this time, Aramis is embarking on the most perilous mission of all: to depose King Louis XIV and put his twin brother, Philip, on the throne instead. Since childhood, Philip has been hidden away so no one would know of his existence - but Aramis believes that he would be the superior ruler. Is Aramis right...or is he making a deadly mistake?

When the Tooting family finds an old engine and fits it to their camper van, they have no idea what kind of adventure lies ahead. The engine used to belong to an extraordinary car, and it wants its bodywork back! But as the Tootings hurtle across the world rebuilding the original Chitty, a sinister baddie is on their trail - one who will stop at nothing to get the magnificent car for himself.

Mrs. Mallard was sure that the pond in the Boston Public Gardens would be a perfect place for her and her eight ducklings to live. The problem was how to get them there through the busy streets of Boston. But with a little help from the Boston police, Mrs. Mallard and Jack, Kack, Lack, Nack, Ouack, Pack, and Quack arrive safely at their new home. This brilliant, amusingly observed tale of mallards on the move has won the hearts of generations.

A huge storm hurls a ship against the rocks with the force of a hurricane. A father, mother and their four sons, abandoned by their now drowned crew, must carve out a new life for themselves on an uncharted island. Join them as they learn how to survive while battling the forces of nature.

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.

Can young Hans Brinker win the silver skates that are the only hope of saving his family from ruin? Hans and his little sister Gretel live in Holland, a colorful and exciting country of windmills and great canals. Unfortunately, the Brinkers are very poor and their father is ill, and Hans wonders whether they'll survive the long, harsh winter. Then he finds out about an ice skating race, and the prize - a pair of shiny silver skates - that might help his family survive.

The story of Flem Snopes' ruthless struggle to take over the town of Jefferson, Mississippi, this is the second volume of Faulkner's trilogy about the Snopes family, his symbol for the grasping, destructive element in the post-bellum South.

Published when Josephine Johnson was only 24 years old, Now in November made Johnson the youngest ever winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1935. It is a beautifully told account of one farming family’s challenges to scrape by and earn a living from mortgaged land over the course of a single year, narrated by one of three sisters—the introspective and thoughtful Margaret. As the household is ravaged by Depression-era hardship and the environmental blights of the Dust Bowl, the family’s unique vulnerabilities are pushed to a breaking point.

Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Beached like a whale in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally rolls into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder.

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.

Orphaned cousins Jane and Lucilla, both 19, receive the exciting news that their guardian is at last allowing them to leave boarding school. But their rosy future is thwarted when they find he has made some bad investments and fled, leaving them with a cottage in the English countryside and a modest bank account.

Tomorrow Will Be Better tells the story of Margy Shannon, a shy but joyfully optimistic young woman just out of school who lives with her parents and witnesses how a lifetime of hard work, poverty, and pain has worn them down. Her mother's resentment toward being a housewife and her father's inability to express his emotions result in a tense home life where Margy has no voice. Unable to speak up against her overbearing mother, Margy takes refuge in her dreams of a better life.