Frank Carlson Library

The adventures of an orphaned young man in Victorian England who is given a great deal of money by an unknown benefactor to enable him to live as a gentleman, pursuing a good education and fulfilling great expectations.

Journalist Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary and their four children lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination, teaching them how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing...

"By official count, more than one out of every six American children live beneath the poverty line. But statistics alone tell little of the story. In Invisible Americans, Jeff Madrick brings to light the often invisible reality and irreparable damage of child poverty in America. Keeping his focus on the children, he examines the roots of the problem, including the toothless remnants of our social welfare system, entrenched racism, and a government...

"The untold story of the root cause of America's education crisis--and the seemingly endless cycle of multigenerational poverty. It was only after years within the education reform movement that Natalie Wexler stumbled across a hidden explanation for ourcountry's frustrating lack of progress when it comes to providing every child with a quality education. The problem wasn't one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability....

Annie is a young, happy foster kid who's also tough enough to make her way on the streets of New York. Originally left by her parents as a baby with the promise that they'd be back for her someday, it's been a hard knock life ever since with her mean foster mom Miss Hannigan. But everything's about to change when the hard-nosed tycoon and New York mayoral candidate Will Stacks, advised by his brilliant VP, Grace and Guy, makes a thinly-veiled campaign...

Warren takes you on a journey into the workhouses, slums, factories, and schools of Victorian England, and into the world of Dickens. She shows now he used his pen to do battle on behalf of the poor, becoming one of the great reformers of his or any age.

A poor girl delights in her coat of many colors, made by her mother from rags, because despite the ridicule of the other children she knows the coat was made with love. "Country music legend Dolly Parton's upbringing in rural Tennessee provides the backdrop for this charming tale of love in a time of need. With winter on the way and no money for new clothes, Mama stitches a coat for her little girl from a donated box of rags. And though her classmates...

Sarah Stone and Jared Roberts are both angry at the world. Sarah, though wealthy and seemingly lacking for nothing, is angry because her father is too busy for her. Jared who lives in an inner city and comes from a broken home is angry because life is unfair and hard. Jared determines to do something about it and decides to rob Sarah's house immediately before Christmas. Into the lives of these angry children comes Nicholas, a mysterious little man,...