The classic story of a boy who makes his own rules and the small Missouri town where he and his friends experience the adventures of a lifetime. Filled with schoolyard pranks, buried treasures, spooky caves, secret gangs, and grave robbers, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is entertainment of the highest order. The clever schemes of its eponymous hero--from tricking his friends into completing his chores to sneaking into his own funeral--are the stuff...

When Margaret and Casey see their father become weedy while working on his botany experiments, they worry that his plant-testing may not be entirely harmless.

Coming down from his carefree youth and unwanted fame, Jack Kerouac undertakes a mature confrontation of some of his most troubling emotional issues: a burgeoning problem with alcoholism, addiction, fear, and insecurity. He dutifully records his ever-changing states of consciousness, which culminate in a powerful religious experience. Big Sur was written some time after Jack Kerouac's best-known works, following a visit to northern California and...

After a plane crash, thirteen-year-old Brian spends fifty-four days in the Canadian wilderness, learning to survive with only the aid of a hatchet given him by his mother, and learning also to survive his parents' divorce.

"In this poetic ode to the first snowfall, a little girl and her friends revel in a wintry wonderland and discover the beauty and joys of snow."--

"Stories about genderqueer characters in the American South"-- The nine stories in Morgan Thomas's shimmering debut collection witness Southern queer and genderqueer characters determined to find themselves reflected in the annals of history, whatever the cost. As Thomas's subjects trace deceit and violence through Southern tall tales and their own pasts, their journeys reveal the porous boundaries of body, land, and history, and the sometimes ruthless...

". . .Taylor delivers a layered elegy for Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old Black girl killed by a Korean shopkeeper in 1992 during an uprising in response to the police beating of Rodney King. Harlins's death is symbolic for all murders of Black people, but Taylor carefully examines the event's particulars. Some of the collection's multimedia elements include photographs taken at the site of Empire liquor store, now a Numero Uno Market, and outside...

When his aunt's illness keeps Ollie in North Carolina, he hopes his summer fling with Will can grow into something more, but at school Will proves to be a completely different--and firmly closeted--man.

Provides in-depth analysis of the literary work Walden, as well as its importance and critical reception. Includes a chronology of the life and works of the author.

"Acclaimed historian Stephanie Coontz provides a myth-shattering examination of two centuries of the American family, sweeping away misconceptions about the past that cloud current debates about domestic life. The 1950s do not present a workable model of how to conduct our personal lives today, Coontz argues, and neither does any other era from our cultural past. This revised edition includes a new introduction and epilogue, looking at what has and...