Frank Carlson Library

For Julia Pandl, the rite of passage into young-adulthood included mandatory service at her family's restaurant, where she watched as her father, who was also the chef, ruled with the strictness of a drill sergeant. At age twelve, Julie was initiated into the rite of the Sunday brunch, a weekly madhouse at her father's Milwaukee-based restaurant, where she and her eight older siblings before her did service in a situation of controlled chaos, learning...

When a recently widowed woman returns to her home town, will resuming a love affair with a high-school sweetheart bring back her joy? Shattered by the loss of her husband, Maggie struggled each day to put her grief behind her- to face life again and to be there for her teenaged daughter. When she returned to her Wisconsin hometown, she never expected to feel a spark of longing for her old high school sweetheart. Eric's marriage to a career-driven...

The few hundred souls who inhabit Words, Wisconsin, are an extraordinary cast of characters. The middle-aged couple who zealously guards their farm from a scheming milk cooperative. The lifelong invalid, crippled by conflicting emotions about her sister. A cantankerous retiree, haunted by childhood memories after discovering a cougar in his haymow. The former drifter who forever alters the ties that bind a community. In his first novel in 30 years,...

It's 1946, after the end of WWII, and Christina Tucker decides to take a nursing job in the small town of Longstock, Wisconsin, working with Dr. Samuel Barlow. Dr. Barlow is well-regarded by the people of Longstock, except for one man: Morris Doyle. Morris believes that his younger brother Jimmy died as a result of Barlow's shoddy care and he is determined to punish the doctor for what he's done -- even if it means hurting those the doctor loves most,...

With Wisconsin Curiosities, popular public radio show host Michael Feldman brings his deliciously sarcastic perspective to the subject of his home state. Together with co-author Diana Cook, he's combed Wisconsin for more than 125 of the weirdest, wackiest, most outrageous people, places, and things the Badger State has to offer. You'll meet a man who owes his life to a foam rubber cheesehead, a worm that plays basketball, and a family of champion...

"When Quaker Rachel Woolsey nurses a former Civil war soldier back to health, he agrees to help her achieve her dream of having her own bakery and a homestead in Pepin, Wisconsin"--

Twelve-year-old Mitch and his mother are spending the summer with his grandparents at Bird Lake after his parents separate, and ten-year-old Spencer and his family have returned to the lake where Spencer's little brother drowned long ago, and as the boys become friends and spend time together, each of them begins to heal.

Camp Chippewa, 1962. Nelson Doughty, age thirteen, social outcast and overachiever, is the Bugler, sounding the reveille proudly each morning. Yet this particular summer marks the beginning of an uncertain and tenuous friendship with a popular boy named Jonathan. Over the years, Nelson, irrevocably scarred from the Vietnam War, becomes Scoutmaster of Camp Chippewa, while Jonathan marries, divorces, and turns his father's business into a highly profitable...

A little pioneer girl and her family spend the winter in their log cabin in the Big Woods of Wisconsin.

Known as "The Peanut Butter Brothers" for their Wisconsin family business, hardworking Andrew, Abraham, and Austin Petersheim have their plates too full for romance--until their little siblings decide to play matchmaker... With their house full to bursting since Mammi and Dawdi moved back in, the Petersheim twins know the only way to get their bedroom back is to get their older brothers married off. But Abraham is so shy, he'll barely speak to girls....