CR - Good reads for Grownups

Description

On an ordinary summer's afternoon, Alice tumbles down a hole and an extraordinary adventure begins. In a strange world with even stranger characters, she meets a grinning cat and a rabbit with a pocket-watch, joins a mad tea party and plays croquet with the Queen. Lost in this fantasy land, Alice finds herself growing more and more curious by the minute.

2) Aru Shah and the end of time

Author

Chokshi, Roshani

Series

Pandava volume 1

Formats:

Description

3) A bandit's tale: the muddled misadventures of a pickpocket

Aru Shah has a tendency to stretch the truth in order to fit in at her private middle school. While her classmates are jetting off to exotic vacations, she'll be spending her autumn break in the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture that her mom curates. Is it any wonder Aru makes up stories about being royalty, traveling to Paris, and having a chauffeur? One day, three schoolmates show up at Aru's doorstep to catch her in a lie. They don't believe...

Author

Hopkinson, Deborah

Formats:

Description

4) Becoming Kareem: growing up on and off the court

In March of 1887, Rocco, an eleven-year-old from an Italian village, arrives in New York CIty where he is forced to live in squalor and beg for money as a street musician, but he finds the city's cruelty to children and animals intolerable and sets out to make things better, whatever the cost to himself.

Author

Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem

Formats:

Description

"An autobiography about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and his life growing up in New York, becoming the basketball star he's known to be, and getting involved in the world around him as an activist for social change"--

5) Beyond the Bright Sea

Author

Wolk, Lauren

Formats:

Description

Twelve-year-old Crow has lived her entire life on a tiny, isolated piece of the starkly beautiful Elizabeth Islands in Massachusetts. Abandoned and set adrift in a small boat when she was just hours old, Crow's only companions are Osh, the man who rescued and raised her, and Miss Maggie, their fierce and affectionate neighbor across the sandbar. Crow has always been curious about the world around her, but it isn't until the night a mysterious fire...

6) The black cauldron

Author

Alexander, Lloyd

Series

Prydain chronicles volume 2

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook

Description

Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper of Prydain, faces even more dangers as he seeks the magical Black Cauldron, the chief implement of the evil powers of Arawn, lord of the Land of Death.

7) A blind guide to Stinkville

Author

Vrabel, Beth

Series

Blind Guide

Description

8) Bluecrowne: A Greenglass House story

Leaving her best friend and the familiarity of Seattle for the paper mill town of "Stinkville," South Carolina, twelve-year-old Alice, who lives with albinism and blindness, takes on the additional challenge of entering the Stinkville Success Stories essay contest.

Author

Milford, Kate

Series

Greenglass House volume 3

Description

In 1810, Lucy Bluecrowne, twelve, is bored living ashore with her stepmother and half brother until two nefarious strangers identify her little brother as the pyrotechnical prodigy they need for their evil plan.

9) The book of three

Author

Alexander, Lloyd

Series

Prydain chronicles volume 1

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook

Description

Book, Audio, eAudiobook, Large Print

Taran, the Assistant Pig Keeper in the mythical kingdom of Prydain, sets out with the warrior Gwydion to save his country from evil.

10) By the shores of Silver Lake

Author

Wilder, Laura Ingalls

Series

Little house (Laura Ingalls Wilder) volume 5

Formats:

Description

Reader's library classics

Ma and the girls follow Pa west by train where they make their home at a rough railroad camp and plan for their own homestead.

11) The call of the wild

Author

London, Jack

Series

Formats:

Description

"There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive. The domesticated life of a powerful St. Bernard-Shepherd mix named Buck is quickly turned on end when he is stolen away from his master and put to work as a sled dog in Alaska. His once life of luxury turns into a life of survival...

12) The castle of Llyr

Author

Alexander, Lloyd

Series

Prydain chronicles volume 3

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook

Description

Book, Audio, eAudiobook, Large Print

When Princess Eilonwy is sent to the Isle of Mona for training, she is bewitched by the evil enchantress Achren, so Taran and other friends must try to rescue her.

13) Charlotte's web

Author

White, E. B

Formats:

Description

Wilbur, the pig, is desolate when he discovers that he is destined to be the farmer's Christmas dinner until his spider friend, Charlotte, decides to help him.

14) Children of the longhouse

Author

Bruchac, Joseph

Description

Eleven-year-old Ohkwa'ri and his twin sister must make peace with a hostile gang of older boys in their Mohawk village during the late 1400s.

15) A Connecticut yankee in King Arthur's court

Author

Twain, Mark

Series

Dover thrift editions

Formats:

Book, eBook

Description

The hit on the head that sent protagonist Hank Morgan back through 13 centuries did not affect his natural resourcefulness. Using his knowledge of an upcoming eclipse, Hank escapes a death sentence, and secures an important position at court. Gradually, he introduces 19th century technology so the clever Morgan soon has an easy life. That does not stop him from making disparaging, tongue-in-cheek remarks about the inequalities and imperfections of...

16) Counting on Grace

Author

Winthrop, Elizabeth

Formats:

Description

It's 1910 in Pownal, Vermont and 12 year old Grace and her best friend Arthur must go to work in the mill, helping their mothers work the looms. Together Grace and Arthur write a secret letter to the Child Labor Board about underage children working in the mill. A few weeks later, Lewis Hine, a famous reformer, arrives undercover to gather evidence. Grace meets him and appears in some of his photographs, changing her life forever.

17) The detective's assistant

Author

Hannigan, Kate

Description

Eleven-year-old Nell Warne arrives on her aunt's doorstep lugging a heavy sack of sorrows. If her Aunt Kate rejects her, it's the miserable Home for the Friendless. Luckily, canny Nell makes herself indispensable to Aunt Kate... and not just by helping out with household chores. For Aunt Kate is the first-ever female detective employed by the legendary Pinkerton Detective Agency. And Nell has a knack for the kind of close listening and bold action...

18) East

Author

Pattou, Edith

Formats:

Description

Full of fear and excitement, a young woman journeys to a distant castle on the back of a great white bear, only to find that her journey has just begun.

19) Falcon Wild

Author

Johnson, Terry Lynn

Formats:

Book, eBook, Kindle

Description

"Thirteen-year-old Karma lives with her family at their raptor conservation center in Montana. When she has to take her beloved bird, Stark, the gyrfalcon she rescued, back to its owner, she's sorely disappointed. But things get worse when a car accident leaves her father and brother trapped. It's up to Karma--and a runaway boy named Cooper who ends up by her side--to survive the wilderness and find a way to rescue them"--

20) The false prince

Author

Nielsen, Jennifer A

Series

Ascendance novels volume 1

Formats:

Description