Classic For Adults

Like every other hobbit, Bilbo Baggins likes nothing better than a quiet evening in his snug hole in the ground, dining on a sumptuous dinner in front of a fire. But when a wandering wizard captivates him with tales of the unknown, Bilbo becomes restless. Soon he joins the wizard’s band of homeless dwarves in search of giant spiders, savage wolves, and other dangers. Bilbo quickly tires of the quest for adventure and longs for the security of his familiar home. But before he can return to his life of comfort, he must face the greatest threat of all.

When Sparrowhawk casts a spell that saves his village from destruction at the hands of the invading Kargs, Ogion, the Mage of Re Albi, encourages the boy to apprentice himself in the art of wizardry. So, at the age of 13, the boy receives his true name - Ged - and gives himself over to the gentle tutelage of the Master Ogion. But impatient with the slowness of his studies and infatuated with glory, Ged embarks for the Island of Roke, where the highest arts of wizardry are taught.

Pollyanna, an expert at her favorite "Glad Game" of always looking at the bright side in her numerous trials, is one of the most popular and enduring characters in all of children's literature. As Pollyanna arrives in Beldingsville to live with her strict and dutiful maiden aunt, she exclaims, "Oh, Aunt Polly, I don't know how to be glad enough that you let me come to live with you!"

"For many days we had been tempest-tossed...the raging storm increased in fury until on the seventh day all hope was lost." So begins this delightful adventure story. The Robinson family, a Swiss pastor, his wife, and four sons, will emerge alive from this terrible storm, bringing to land two dogs and a shipload of livestock: hens, pigeons, and geese.

Revolutionary for its realistic dialogue and uncompromising plot, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is arguably the greatest of all American novels, and a powerful sequel to Mark Twain's lighthearted classic, Tom Sawyer.Join the industrious, fiercely independent young Huck as he escapes his abusive, drunken father and sets out on an unforgettable journey down the Mississippi River.

Anne Shirley, the mischievous, carrot-topped waif of Anne of Green Gables, has grown into a lovely young woman who leaves the security of Prince Edward Island to enroll at Redmond College. There, she discovers a professor who believes education is wasted on women, ponders the security offered in marriage proposals, and a host of other questions of young adulthood.

The free-spirited Anne Shirley has a beautiful way of looking at the world and touching our hearts. In this, the third volume of the Anne of Green Gables series, the irrepressible Anne dreams of the woman she hopes to be when she decides to leave Green Gables and her beloved Prince Edward Island for college. She is eager for new adventure.

The sorcerer Alder fears sleep. The dead are pulling him to them at night. Through him they may free themselves and invade Earthsea. Alder seeks advice from Ged, once Archmage. Ged tells him to go to Tenar, Tehanu, and the young king at Havnor. They are joined by amber-eyed Irian, a fierce dragon able to assume the shape of a woman. The threat can be confronted only in the Immanent Grove on Roke, the holiest place in the world, and there the king, hero, sage, wizard, and dragon make a last stand.

Marooned on a tropical island, alone in a world of uncharted possibilities, and devoid of adult supervision or rules, a group of British boys begins to forge a society with its own unique rules and rituals.

Bryon and Mark aren't related, but they are as close as brothers. Ever since his parents died when he was nine, Mark has lived with Bryon and his mother. Now at 16, they like to reminisce about old times - the fights and pranks at school, smoking and swearing - junk they got into when they were younger. But lately things have been different. Bryon starts spending a lot of time with Cathy, and she makes him feel there are some things worth working for. He grows bored with all the fighting, the dead-end choices of life on the streets.

The Deerslayer is the first of the Leatherstocking Tales of James Fenimore Cooper. Here we meet Natty Bumppo as a young man living in upstate New York in the early 1740s. The action begins as Bumppo, called "Deerslayer", and his friend Hurry Harry approach Lake Glimmerglass, or Oswego, where the trapper Thomas Hutter lives with his daughters, the beautiful Judith and the feeble-minded Hetty. Hutter's floating log fort is attacked by Iroquois Indians, and the two frontiersmen join in the fight.

The first thing every listener will want to know is whether Anne Shirley appears in these stories of Avonlea and Spencervale. She certainly does. As a matter of fact, page one starts off in this manner: "Anne Shirley was curled up on the window seat of Theodora Dix's sitting room one Saturday evening, looking dreamily afar at some fair starland beyond the hills of sunset. Anne was visiting for a fortnight of her vacation."

This classic and much lauded retelling of Beowulf follows the monster Grendel as he learns about humans and fights the war at the center of the Anglo Saxon classic epic.

During the reign of Richard I, Wilfred of Ivanhoe earns his father's disapproval by falling in love with Rowena, his father's ward. His father had planned to wed her himself, and reestablish the Saxon line.

Young Princess Irene is sent to the country to be raised in a half-farmhouse, half-castle located in the side of a mountain. While exploring the top of the castle, Irene becomes lost and inexplicably finds her way to a mystifying and beautiful woman spinning a thread. Princess Irene is drawn to the woman whom she discovers is her great-great-grandmother. But after she returns, her nurse, Lootie, refuses to believe in the old woman's existence.

Zoey Daniels has been tossed from foster home to foster home, where she grows up fast and tough. When she is placed in her "last chance" home, she finds a reason to stay and turn her life around: her foster sister, Lexie, who is paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. After high school, Zoey is hired by a special government agency, the Department of Molecular Genetics (DMG), where she meets the other reason to remain: Daniel, her coworker. The man she loves. But there is something unique about Zoey.

How Do You Live? is narrated in two voices. The first belongs to Copper, 15, who after the death of his father must confront inevitable and enormous change, including his own betrayal of his best friend.

The touching story of a young, mortally ill priest who spends his last days working among the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia.

Ponyboy can count on his brothers. And on his friends. But not on much else besides trouble with the Socs, a vicious gang of rich kids whose idea of a good time is beating up "greasers" like Ponyboy. At least he knows what to expect, until the night someone takes things too far.

In the ancient lands of Middle-earth, a place of elves and dwarves, Orcs and wizards, the darkest evil and the brightest good, a hobbit named Frodo Baggins embarks on a perilous quest: to carry the One Ring, ruler of all the Rings of Power, into the shadowy land of Mordor and destroy it in the fires where it was forged.