Frank Carlson Library

Explores in words and pictures what a family is and how families vary in makeup and life-styles.

Newbery Honor-winning author, Patricia Reilly Giff, recounts her discoveries as she unravels some of the mysteries of her Irish ancestors.

A pictorial essay on cowboys, focusing on the annual round-up at the Eby Ranch in Faywood, New Mexico.

Lenny follows Olivia for a school project and learns about her life with her stepfamily.

Looks at the early life of Martin Luther King, Jr., as seen through the eyes of his older sister.

Children's book author Claire A. Nivola explores the village of Orani, the tiny hamlet in the mountains of central Sardinia where her father lived before moving to New York during World War II.

"Drama, family secrets, and a KGB spy in his own kitchen! How will Yevgeny ever fulfill his parents' dream that he become a national hero when he doesn't even have his own room? He's not a star athlete or a legendary ballet dancer. In the tiny apartment he shares with his Baryshnikov-obsessed mother, poetry-loving father, continually outraged grandmother, and safely talented brother, all Yevgeny has is his little pencil, the underside of a massive...

At the beginning of the Civil War, Lula McLean's family home in Manassas, Virginia, is taken over by the Confederate army and used as its headquarters. Forced to flee by the oncoming Union army, Lula and her family and her favorite rag doll move south to a small village called Appomattox Court House. Then one day in 1865, Lula left her doll behind, and what happened next made history.

The story of Robert and Margarete and their children Johannes and Dorothea, who emigrate from Germany to the United States in 1850. After landing in New Orleans and joining a wagon train headed west to Nebraska, the family establishes a farm outside Omaha. The book ends with a switch to modern day with descendants of Robert and Margarete living on the same farm. They make the decision to investigate their roots and visit Germany, reversing the trip...

"If you go to the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, you can see a massive American flag: thirty feet tall and forty-two feet long. That's huge! But how did it get there? And where did it come from? Well ... The story of this giant flag begins in 1812 and stars a major on the eve of battle, a seamstress and her mighty helpers, and a poet named Francis Scott Key. This isn't just the story of one flag. It's the story of "The Star Spangled-Banner," a poem...