Akron Public Library

Set at a boys' boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world. A bestseller for more than thirty years, A Separate Peace is...

The impact on a religious community in the South when the 14-year-old granddaughter of the founder becomes pregnant. The community is the Church of Fire and Brimstone where sin is punished by whipping. The girl insists she is not guilty of the sin of fornication and no amount of punishment will make her recant. When the baby is born with a birth defect, her grandfather takes that as a sign the baby is the New Messiah. By the author of Bitterroot Landing....

Set in the near-future, Into the Forest is a powerfully imagined novel that focuses on the relationship between two teenage sisters living alone in their Northern California forest home. Over 30 miles from the nearest town, and several miles away from their nearest neighbor, Nell and Eva struggle to survive as society begins to decay and collapse around them. No single event precedes society's fall. There is talk of a war overseas and upheaval in...

From its first magnificent sentence, "In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing", to the last, "I am haunted by waters", A River Runs Through It is an American classic. Based on Norman Maclean's childhood experiences, A River Runs Through It has established itself as one of the most moving stories of our time; it captivates readers with vivid descriptions of life along Montana's Big Blackfoot River and its near magical...

Nine-year-old Eliza Naumann is considered an unspectacular child--until she surprises everyone by winning her school spelling bee. But just as she begins to shine, her family starts falling apart.

In a novel set in Canada, on the Haisla reservation of Kitamaat, a young Native American woman's visions facilitate a journey of self-discovery that will take her into the heart of her troubled society.

When his father dies, Rob must shoulder the responsibility of running the farm and coping with school; a tale of enduring strength. Adolescence.

A Jewish girl's adolescent years on Long Island are described in a collection of stories. In one, her father remarries, in a second her brother drops out of university, in a third her mother dies of cancer.

"When Melody Logan's beloved stepfather died, and her mother left her with his relatives on Cape Cod, Melody felt marooned. She discovered that the wealthy, tight-lipped Logans harbored dark secrets - even about Melody's own twisted history - and no one but their good-hearted son, Cary, would breathe a word about it. Then her mother died in a car accident in California, and Melody was suddenly as alone as a solitary gull, with only the wild Atlantic...