Catalog Search Results
1) Ethan Frome
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 7.6 - AR Pts: 6
Formats
Description
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...
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: MG - BL: 5 - AR Pts: 3
Description
"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...
3) Oliver Twist
Author
Series
Accelerated Reader
IL: MG - BL: 4.6 - AR Pts: 2
Formats
Description
The story of Oliver Twist - orphaned, and set upon by evil and adversity from his first breath - shocked readers when it was published. After running away from the workhouse and pompous beadle Mr Bumble, Oliver finds himself lured into a den of thieves peopled by vivid and memorable characters - the Artful Dodger, vicious burglar Bill Sikes, his dog Bull's Eye, and prostitute Nancy, all watched over by cunning master-thief Fagin. Combining elements...
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: MG - BL: 6.7 - AR Pts: 5
Description
"When A Christmas Carol was first published in 1843 it was an overnight success, and set a precedent that was to be followed by other Christmas books, including The Chimes (1844) and The Cricket (1845). Each book was published at the same time of year, in the same format, and extolled similar values about the virtues of love, charity and the family unit. But none would achieve the cult status of A Christmas Carol, a book so popular it has become part...
Author
Series
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 9.2 - AR Pts: 35
Appears on list
Description
Great Expectations is Charles Dickens's thirteenth novel. It is his second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person. Great Expectations is a bildungsroman, or a coming-of-age novel, and it is a classic work of Victorian literature. It depicts the growth and personal development of an orphan named Pip. The novel was first published in serial form in Dickens's weekly periodical All the Year Round, from 1 December 1860...
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 8.8 - AR Pts: 61
Formats
Description
John Harmon returns to England as his father's heir. Believed drowned under suspicious circumstances--a situation convenient to his wish for anonymity--John evaluates Bella Wilfer whom he must marry to secure his inheritance. The story is filled with colorful Victorian characters and incidents -- the faded aristocrats and parvenus gathered at the Veneering's dinner table, Betty Higden and her terror of the workhouse and the greedy plottings of Silas...
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 9.5 - AR Pts: 23
Formats
Description
Young Tess Durbeyfield attempts to restore her family's fortunes by claiming their connection with the aristocratic d'Urbervilles. But Alec d'Urberville is a rich wastrel who seduces her and makes her life miserable. When Tess meets Angel Clare, she is offered true love and happiness, but her past catches up with her and she faces an agonizing moral choice...
9) Black Beauty
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: MG - BL: 7.7 - AR Pts: 11
Description
"Black Beauty is a perennial children's favourite, one which has never been out of print since its publication in 1877. It is a moralistic tale of the life of the horse related in the form of an autobiography, describing the world through the eyes of the creature. In taking this anthropomorphic approach, the author Anna Sewell broke new literary ground and her effective storytelling ability makes it very easy for the reader to accept the premise that...
10) Mansfield Park
Author
Series
Formats
Description
Mansfield Park is a study of three families - the Bertrams, the Crawfords, and the Prices - with the isolated figure of the heroine, Fanny price, at its centre. Fanny's quiet passivity, her steadfast loyalty, and love for the son of the family who regard her as the poor relation, and who have taken her under their roof, are among the qualities whose true worth is not appreciated until they are tried against the brilliant and witty Mary and Henry Crawford,...
11) Shirley
Author
Series
Formats
Description
The story of a complicated friendship between two very different women: shy and socially constrained Caroline, the poor niece of a tyrannical clergyman; and the independent heiress Shirley, who has both the resources and the spirit to defy convention. The romantic entanglements of the two women with a local mill owner and his penniless brother pit the claims of passion against the boundaries of class and society.
Author
Series
Accelerated Reader
IL: MG - BL: 8.6 - AR Pts: 21
Formats
Description
The story of Robin of Locksley, outlaw of Sherwood Forest, telling how he gathered such loyal followers as Little John, Friar Tuck, Will Scarlet, and Allan a Dale, and relating their adventures in the service of Richard the Lion-Hearted.
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 11.9 - AR Pts: 71
Formats
Description
When his father dies, Nicholas is sent by his uncle to a school to be a teacher, but when Nicholas finds that the headmaster bullies the students, he must decide whether to stay, or leave and allow his uncle to cut off support.
14) Bleak house
Author
Series
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 8.8 - AR Pts: 67
Formats
Description
As the interminable case of 'Jarndyce and Jarndyce' grinds its way through the Court of Chancery, it draws together a disparate group of people: Ada and Richard Clare, whose inheritance is gradually being devoured by legal costs; Esther Summerson, a ward of court, whose parentage is a source of deepening mystery; the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn; the determined sleuth Inspector Bucket; and even Jo, the destitute little crossing-sweeper. A savage, but...
Author
Series
Accelerated Reader
IL: MG+ - BL: 9.5 - AR Pts: 13
Description
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.
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 7.2 - AR Pts: 28
Formats
Description
On the surface Pagford seems like a quiet little English village. But the truth is, it's a town where the rich are at war with the poor, wives are at war with their husbands, and teachers are at war with their pupils. An empty seat on the town council is the catalyst for the biggest conflict of all.
18) Euphoria
Author
Appears on list
Description
"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...
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: MG - BL: 3.4 - AR Pts: 1
Appears on list
Description
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...
20) Caddie Woodlawn
Author
Series
Accelerated Reader
IL: MG - BL: 6 - AR Pts: 8
Appears on list
Description
The adventures of an eleven-year-old tomboy growing up on the Wisconsin frontier in the mid-nineteenth century. At age 11, Caddie Woodlawn is the despair of her mother and the pride of her father: a clock-fixing tomboy running wild in the woods of Wisconsin. In 1864, this is a bit much for her Boston-bred mother to bear, but Caddie and her brothers are happy with the status quo. Written in 1935 about Carol Ryrie Brink's grandmother's childhood, the...