NCW Libraries

"The Couch Potato has everything he needs within reach of his sunken couch cushion. But when the electricity goes out, Couch Potato is forced to peel himself away from the comforts of his living room and venture outside. And when he does, he realizes fresh air and sunshine could be just the things he needs..."--

“Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his character appear in spite of him.” The Way of All Flesh is a novel by English author Samuel Butler, published in 1903, a year after his death. A semi-autobiographical work, it is a brilliant, subversive critique of Victorian-era social hypocrisy. Telling...

Louis always interrupts other people when they are talking. Will Louis learn how to respectfully wait for his turn to talk?

When the monkey cage at the zoo is moved near the picnic area where children play, the young monkeys start to copy the good manners they see the children using, until their mother corrects them.

Christmas has arrived with so many rules to follow that David fears his mistakes will cause Santa to pass him by.

Presents sixteen short fiction stories by nineteenth-century American author O. Henry, including the title work about the Christmas sacrifices of a young married couple.

Set against the backdrop of early 19th-century England, the novel opens with the Bennet family, a respectable yet financially modest clan residing in the rural town of Longbourn. The Bennets consist of the witty and sharp-minded Mr. Bennet, his good-natured but sometimes frivolous wife Mrs. Bennet, and their five daughters-Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia. The crux of the story unfolds with the arrival of the eligible and wealthy bachelor Mr....

A story about a rude cake who never says please or thank you or listens to its parents, and a Giant Cyclops who is polite.

Sir Phillip knew that Eloise Bridgerton was a spinster, and so he'd proposed, figuring that she'd be homely and unassuming, and more than a little desperate for an offer of marriage. Except . . . she wasn't. The beautiful woman on his doorstep was anything but quiet, and when she stopped talking long enough to close her mouth, all he wanted to do was kiss her . . . and more. Did he think she was mad? Eloise Bridgerton couldn't marry a man she had...

In these twenty stories, Mark Helprin offers a series of meditations on some of humanity's most enduring and universal questions. At the hour of his death, an American priest in Rome must choose between his church and his God. A young man finds love in a hot, dirty typewriter-ribbon factory in the Bronx. A Dutch child in a Canadian orphanage carries the pain of war and her love for her family in her heart. An Israeli scout risks the safety and respect...