Akron Public Library

"In the poor town of Carp, New York, a group of teens enters a high-stakes game that involves a series of secretive, possibly deadly challenges throughout the summer, with the winner receiving more than $50,000--enough money to start a new life"--

A marked departure from Edith Wharton's usual ironic contemplation of the fashionable New York society to which she herself belonged, Ethan Frome is a sharply etched portrait of the simple inhabitants of a nineteenth-century New England village. The protagonist, Ethan Frome, is a man tormented by a passionate love for his ailing wife's young cousin. Trapped by the bonds of marriage and the fear of public condemnation, he is ultimately destroyed by...

The struggle of three brothers to stay together after their parent's death and their quest for identity among the conflicting values of their adolescent society. When it was first published in 1967, The Outsiders defied convention with its immediate, deeply sympathetic portrayal of Ponyboy and his struggle to find a place for himself in a difficult world. Thirty years later, it speaks to teenagers as powerfully as ever. Puffin is proud to publish...

"English anthropologist Andrew Banson has been alone in the field for several years, studying the Kiona river tribe in the Territory of New Guinea. Haunted by the memory of his brothers' deaths and increasingly frustrated and isolated by his research, Bankson is on the verge of suicide when a chance encounter with colleagues, the controversial Nell Stone and her wry and mercurial Australian husband, Fen, pulls him back from the brink. Nell and Fen...

The story of the Lesters, a family of white sharecroppers so destitute most of their creditors had given up on them.

"Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters...

Child poverty increased at an astonishing rate from 2000 to 2007 in Colorado. Although Colorado holds an unimpressive middle rank (22) nationally in the percentage of children in poverty, the KidsCount Data Center reports that the number of poor children in our state grew from 104,000 in 2000 to 192,000 poor children in 2007, an increase of 85 percent and the poor children in our state grew from 104,000 in 2000 to 192,000 poor children in 2007, an...

They are the same age and they look alike. Tom Canty is a child of the London slums; Edward Tudor is heir to the throne of England. Just how insubstantial this difference is becomes all too clear when a chance encounter leads to an exchange of clothing and roles.

Includes: A Christmas Carol, in Prose; The Chimes and the Cricket on the Hearth