Akron Public Library

Growing Up! Young David Copperfield, orphaned as a child, abandoned by a vicious stepfather, must learn to make a life for himself. In Charles Dickens' brilliant novel, we learn of David's early harsh years... his adoption by his eccentric aunt... his betrayal by a childhood friend... the pressures of starting a career... immature, young love... and finally career success and personal happiness. Charles Dickens' sensitive portrayal of David's early...

It was the time of the French Revolution - a time of great change and great danger. It was a time when injustice was met by a lust for vengeance, and rarely was a distinction made between the innocent and the guilty. Against this tumultuous historical backdrop, Dickens' great story of unsurpassed adventure and courage unfolds.Unjustly imprisoned for 18 years in the Bastille, Dr. Alexandre Manette is reunited with his daughter, Lucie, and safely transported...

Imagine growing up among wolves, being friends with a panther and a bear, and hunting the most fearsome animal in the wild-the man-killing tiger Shere Khan. These are the stories of Mowgli ""the frog,"" a man-cub raised by wolves, and his journey to adulthood with the help of Baloo the bear, and Bagheera the black panther. The Jungle Book is collections of short stories. Each story begins with a few lines of poetry. The best known of these jungle...

Join Dorothy Gale, Toto, and all of her friends as they explore the incredible land of Oz. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is American's most enduring fairy tale. From the moment Dorothy puts on the silver slippers (changed to ruby slippers by MGM to take advantage of their new advance in movie making: color) until the moment she clicks her heals and returns home to Kansas you will be swept away and captivated by her extraordinary story. This lavishing...

At Baskerville Hall on the grim moors of Devonshire, a legendary curse has apparently claimed one more victim. Sir Charles Baskerville has been found dead. There are no signs of violence, but his face is hideously distorted with terror. Has the spectral destroyer struck again? More important, is Sir Henry Baskerville, younger heir to the estate, now in danger? Enter Sherlock Holmes, summoned to protect Sir Henry. As Holmes and Watson begin to investigate,...

"On an autumn day, in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, two boys were born in England, one to a poor family by the name of Canty who lived in Offal Court, not far from London Bridge, and the other to a wealthy and high-placed family by the name of Tudor. Young Tom Canty, unwanted, unloved, began his day-dreaming early in order to forget the petty stealing to which he was forced by his cruel rogue of a father--and the royal Court and young...

The wayward traveler -- Lemuel Gulliver -- ends up on a series of bizarrely populated islands. First he is a giant among little people, but then sees the situation reversed when he's surrounded by giants twelve times his size. Next he finds himself in the clouds, in a society of devoted but ultimately hapless mathematicians. Lastly, his journey brings him to an island where incredibly noble horses must deal with a race of uncouth, reviled ape-men:...

Called "the veriest trash" by a member of the Concord, Massachusetts Library Board that banned the novel when it was first published, Huckleberry Finn has come to be viewed, as H.L. Mencken put it, as "one of the great masterpieces of the world." Ernest Hemingway wrote that "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn....There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since." A daringly ironic...

The first and best of the Tarzan novels, of which Edgar Rice Burroughs eventually wrote several dozen, Tarzan of the Apes remains one of the signature stories of American popular literature, as readable as it is famous. Tarzan himself, in the words of Arthur C. Clarke, is "the best known character in the whole of fiction." As John Taliaferro asserts in his Introduction to this Modern Library Paperback Classic, "There is no question that [Tarzan of...

"Stephen Crane's immortal masterpiece about the nightmare of war was first published in 1895 and brought its young author immediate international fame. Set during the Civil War, it tells of the brutal disillusionment of a young recruit who had dreamed of the thrill and glory of war, only to find himself fleeing the horror of a battlefield. Shame over his cowardice drives him to seek to redeem himself by being wounded -- earning what he calls the "red...