Akron Public Library

Alan Christofferson, wakes one morning to find himself injured, alone, and confined to a hospital bed in Spokane, Washington. Sixteen days earlier, reeling from the sudden loss of his wife, his home, and his business, Alan left everything and set off on an extraordinary cross-country journey. He planned to walk to Key West. But a vicious roadside stabbing has interrupted his trek. Homeless and facing months of difficult recovery,. Alan has nowhere...

Who says you can't run away from your problems? You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes--it would be too awkward--and you can't say no--it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world.QUESTION How do you arrange to skip town?ANSWER You accept them all.What...

Time travelers Jonah and Katherine arrive in 1611 to rescue missing child John Hudson, son of the explorer Henry Hudson, but just as the mutiny on the Discovery is supposed to start, Jonah and Katherine's knowledge of history is tested once again, and they fear that more is at stake than just one boy's life. Author's note includes facts about Henry Hudson's explorations.

"A magnificent novel about four orphans on a life-changing odyssey during the Great Depression, from the bestselling author of Ordinary Grace. 1932, Minnesota��� the Lincoln School is a pitiless place where hundreds of Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to an orphan named Odie O'Banion, a lively boy whose exploits earn him the superintendent's wrath. Forced to flee, he and...

"Life is not lived in the long, downhill stretches of expressways, but in the obscure, perilous trails and back roads where we stumble and feel our way through the fog of our unknowing. Life is not a run. It is just one step of faith after another."Alan Christoffersen lost his heart when his wife was killed in an accident almost one year ago. He lost his trust when his business partner stole his advertising business. He lost his home when the bank...

What would you do if you lost everything--your job, your home, and the love of your life--all at the same time? When it happens to Seattle ad executive Alan Christoffersen, he's tempted by his darkest thoughts but then decides to take a walk, heading for the farthest point on his map: Key West, Florida. The people he encounters along the way, and the lessons they share with him, will save his life.

In a world where no one can go outside for fear of something terrifying that when seen drives people to deadly violence, single mother Malorie and her two children must attempt a terrifying twenty-mile trip downriver while blindfolded.

"Larkspur Nielsen is ready for a change. Her parents have passed on, and her older brother is successfully running the family business. She bristles at the small-mindedness that permeates life in her small Ohio community, and she sees little chance of a satisfying future there. She has a little money saved, and after turning the tables on a crooked gambler who had fleeced several locals, including her younger brother, she can stake a new start for...

Alan Christoffersen's wife was thrown from a horse and paralyzed from the waist down, and in just a few weeks, died of complications. On her deathbed, Alan promised his wife he would live. Alan decided to set off on an extraordinary cross-country walk. Carrying only a backpack, he plans to walk from Seattle to Key West, the farthest destination on his map. Now nearly halfway through his trek, this book takes him from South Dakota to Memphis, Tennessee....

Left on their own in seventeenth-century London, three impoverished children draw upon all their resources to stay together and make their way to the Virginia colony in search of their father.