Akron Public Library

An old and tired winter wind looks for a place to rest. An oak tree orders the wind away as does a mountain. In frustration the wind gathers into a storm and covers the earth with snow. How will a littlle girl finally offer the wind rest? Allegedly based on a Jewish tale from Soviet Russia. But the writer of the afterword couldn't find the source of the tale in the Soviet Union.

"Truffle, a small dog, was born and raised on a farm, where he was put in charge of keeping the rats out of the barn, and the badgers out of the fields. Truffle enjoyed his work, and he took pride in doing it well. The only difficulty he had was with cats. Nothing irritated Truffle more than the sight of a cat sleeping on the job while the mice ate their fill in the corncrib. Truffle would howl loudly, waking the cat, which then would dash off with...

In 1885, a lonely illegitimate American boy and a lonely Chinese American boy develop an unlikely friendship in the midst of prejudices and racial tension in their coal mining town of Rock Springs, Wyoming.

"After their friend Mark's mum wins the lottery and gets a giant house with an indoor pool, Ali and Sami have been having the time of their lives hanging at Mark's house. Even their friend Aadam gets a job there, which means he can make more money for his legal battle for UK residency. But when some money goes missing, Aadam is accused of stealing it—and all three boys are unceremoniously kicked out of Mark's house in suspicion. On top of that,...

"It's 1941, and tensions are rising in the United States as the Second World War rages in Europe. Eleven-year-old Gusta's life, like the world around her, is about to change. Her father, a foreign-born labor organizer, has had to flee the country, and Gusta has been sent to live in an orphanage run by her grandmother. Nearsighted, snaggletoothed Gusta arrives in Springdale, Maine, lugging her one precious possession: a beloved old French horn, her...

Papa Bear thinks that Thanksgiving is the best holiday of all, but his overreaction to the cubs' report of seeing Bigpaw in the woods teaches him an important lesson about the meaning of the day.

Monster is excited to see what kind of creature will move into Vampire's old house on the block. He even starts practicing his welcome growl for the new neighbor. But when the moving truck pulls up, it's not a greedy goblin, an ogre, or a dastardly dragon that steps out. Instead, it's something even more terrifying than Monster could have imagined! Monster quickly rallies the other neighbors to unite against the new guy on the block. But what if the...