Akron Public Library

Take an unforgettable journey through the English countryside and into the homes of its inhabitants--four-legged and otherwise--with the world's best-loved animal doctor. For over 25 years, since "All Creatures Great and Small" was first published, readers have delighted to the storytelling genius of James Herriot, the Yorkshire veterinarian whose fascinating vignettes brim with the wonder of life, animal and human.

The adventures of Despereaux Tilling, a small mouse of unusual talents, the princess that he loves, the servant girl who longs to be a princess, and a devious rat determined to bring them all to ruin.

One day Milo finds an enormous and mysterious package in his room. A phantom tollbooth, with a map to a weird world beyond! So Milo sets off on a fantastic voyage in which he meets: the not so wicked Witch, Faintly Macabre, Alec Bings who sees through things, and the watchdog, Tock, who ticks.

Young Parvana lives with her family in one room of a bombed-out apartment building in Kabul, Afghanistan. Because Parvana's father has a foreign education, he is arrested by the Taliban. Women cannot appear in public unless covered head to toe, go to school, or work outside the home, so the family becomes increasingly desperate until Parvana conceives a plan.

Pigeon is an unflinching and hilarious look at a child's potential for mischief. In a plain palette, with childishly elemental line drawings, Willems has captured the essence of unreasonableness in the very young.

The Big Friendly Giant is no ordinary bone-crunching giant. He is far too nice and it's lucky for Sophie that he is. If she had been carried off by any of the other giants she would have been breakfast. When Sophie hears that the giants are headed to England to steal some little children, she and the BFG decide they must stop them once and for all.

"When A Christmas Carol was first published in 1843 it was an overnight success, and set a precedent that was to be followed by other Christmas books, including The Chimes (1844) and The Cricket (1845). Each book was published at the same time of year, in the same format, and extolled similar values about the virtues of love, charity and the family unit. But none would achieve the cult status of A Christmas Carol, a book so popular it has become part...

"A most untraditional love story, this is the celebrated tale of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who inadvertently travels through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare's passionate affair endures across a sea of time and captures them in an impossibly romantic trap that tests the strength of fate and basks in the bonds of love. The Time Traveler's Wife is an odd and enchanting...

Danny is brought up by his father, who's a great storyteller and a genius with cars and kites. He's also a poacher, and with Danny's help he catches more pheasants than anyone else in the history of poaching.

Father Timothy Kavanagh, married for the first time at the age of sixty-something, struggles to deal with the upheaval and delight of having a wife, while also presiding over the triumphs and troubles of the people of the small town of Mitford, North Carolina.