Frank Carlson Library

The adventures of a mischievous young boy and his friends growing up in a Mississippi River town in the nineteenth century. Who could forget the pranks, the adventures, the sheer fun of Tom Sawyer? It's something every child should experience and every child will love. From Tom's sly trickery with the whitewashed fence, when he cleverly manipulates everyone so they happily do his work for him, to his and Becky Thatcher's calamities in Bat Cave, the...

Six-year-old Ramona tries to cope with an unsympathetic first-grade teacher. In this touching and funny story, the ebullient Ramona, feeling brave and grown-up, enters first grade. Quickly she finds that her new teacher, Mrs. Griggs, appears perplexed by pupils who like to be different. Since Ramona cannot help being different, clearly the two are incompatible. Nevertheless, Ramona can be counted on to keep things lively. Enraged when Susan copies...

That fool of a fairy Lucinda did not intend to lay a curse on me. She meant to bestow a gift. When I cried inconsolably through my first hour of life, my tears were her inspiration. Shaking her head sympathetically at Mother, the fairy touched my nose. 'My gift is obedience. Ella will always be obedient. Now stop crying, child.' I stopped. So begins this richly entertaining story of Ella of Frell, who wants nothing more than to be free of Lucinda's...

A "biography of one of America's greatest generals-- and most misunderstood presidents"-- "In his time, Ulysses S. Grant was routinely grouped with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in the "Trinity of Great American Leaders." But the battlefield commander-turned-commander-in-chief fell out of favor in the twentieth century. In American Ulysses, Ronald C. White argues that we need to once more revise our estimates of him in the twenty-first. Based...