NCW Libraries

Offers a history of the river, describes Twain's experiences as a riverboat pilot, and shares tall tales, character sketches, and observations about the Mississippi.

"The eagerly awaited return of master American storyteller Rinker Buck, Life on the Mississippi is an epic, enchanting blend of history and adventure in which Buck builds a wooden flatboat from the grand 'flatboat era' of the 1800s and sails it down the Mississippi River, illuminating the forgotten past of America’s first western frontier. Seven years ago, readers around the country fell in love with a singular American voice: Rinker Buck,...

When riverboat captain Doctor John Pearly learns that his nephew Duke has killed a man in self-defense, he urges Duke to turn himself in. But Duke's only chance for freedom is the testimony of a half-crazed witness, New Moses, who has disappeared upriver.

In 1932, Minnesota's Lincoln School is a pitiless place where hundreds of Native American children forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to Odie O'Banion, a lively boy whose exploits upset the superintendent. Forced to flee, Odie and his brother Albert, their bestfriend Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy, steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi. During one unforgettable summer,...

"From Percival Everett--a recipient of the NBCC Lifetime Achievement Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Booker Prize, and numerous PEN awards--comes James, a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby...

In 1927, the Mississippi River swept across an area roughly equal in size to Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont combined, leaving water as deep as thirty feet on the land stretching from Illinois and Missouri south to the Gulf of Mexico. Close to a million people - in a nation of 120 million - were forced out of their homes. Some estimates place the death toll in the thousands. The Red Cross fed nearly 700,000 refugees for months....

A simplified retelling of the classic story of the mischievous 19th-century boy in a Mississippi River town and his friends, Huck Finn and Becky Thatcher, as they run away from home, witness a murder, and find treasure in a cave.

Eager to flee from his drunken father and the confining life with Widow Douglass and Miss Watson, Huck sets off on a raft down the Mississippi with Jim, a runaway slave, in tow.

A deeply human exploration of how our centuries-long dream of conquering and shaping this vast network of waterways squares with the reality of an indomitable natural world.

From land, boat, and sky. Above and below the water. From the point of view of the animals and people who are found there, we will show these rivers as they have never been seen before, highlighting each river's very own unique atmosphere and character so that each episode will have its own mood. This series will find new perspectives to cover these amazing waterways. Using the latest in filming technology, they will take viewers on a journey to uncover...