The Great American Read

A mischievous boy growing up in a Mississippi River town in the 19th century impresses his friends and horrifies adults by associating with the son of the town drunk, running away from home, attending his own funeral, etc.

"On a warm summer afternoon, inquisitive young Alice tumbles down a rabbit-hole into Wonderland. In this strange, unforgettable world, Alice meets the anxious White Rabbit and the grinning Cheshire cat, joins a mad tea-party with the Hatter and the March Hare, plays croquet with the frightening Queen of Hearts and encounters many other iconic characters that have captured the imagination of children for generations. Lewis Carroll's surreal tale has...

Ten houseguests, trapped on an isolated island, are the prey of a diabolical killer. A famous nursery rhyme is framed and hung in every room of the mansion: Ten little Indian boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were nine ... When they realize that murders are occurring as described in the rhyme, terror mounts. Who has choreographed this dastardly scheme? And who will be left to tell the tale?

"First there is a battlefield, a pressure-cooker, a time-bomb: the destructive potential that exists in racial bigotry, in color prejudice and in the tensions and sensitivities which such attitudes encourage. Woven into this pattern of violence, there is a theme that is gentle, wistful and poetic: this is Baldwin's apologia for homosexual love."

Set after the American Civil War (1861-1865), the novel is inspired by the story of an African American slave, Margaret Garner, who escaped slavery in Kentucky late January 1856 by fleeing to Ohio, a free state. In the novel, the protagonist Sethe is also a slave who escapes slavery, running to Cincinnati, Ohio. After twenty-eight days of freedom, a posse arrives to retrieve her and her children under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which gave slave...

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.

Presents the adventures of an unusual dog, part Saint Bernard and part Scotch shepherd, that is forcibly taken to the Klondike gold fields where he eventually becomes the leader of a wolf pack.

In an effort to escape the hypocrisies of life at his boarding school, sixteen-year-old Holden Caulfield seeks refuge in New York City.

An injured and orphaned infant carries within her the seed and hope of mankind in this epic of survival and destiny set at the dawn of prehistory.

"The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance, and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then from the sisters to each other, the novel draws readers into the experiences of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery, and Sofia"--