Most Popular Adult Fiction in 2021

Adult Fiction


  • Hannah, Kristin
    The four winds
    Summary:"Texas, 1934. Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. The Dust Bowl era has arrived with a vengeance. In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west to California in search of a better life."


  • Bennett, Brit
    The vanishing half
    Summary:"The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect? 


  • Haig, Matt
    The midnight library
    Summary:Nora Seed finds herself faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, or realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist, she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.


  • Foley, Lucy
    The guest list : a novel
    Summary:On an island off the windswept Irish coast, guests gather for the wedding of the year – the marriage of Jules Keegan and Will Slater. Old friends. Past grudges. Happy families. Hidden jealousies. Thirteen guests. One body. The wedding cake has barely been cut when one of the guests is found dead. And as a storm unleashes its fury on the island, everyone is trapped. All have a secret. All have a motive. One guest won’t leave this wedding alive…


  • Backman, Fredrik
    Anxious people : a novel
    Summary:"Looking at real estate isn’t usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a recently retired couple who relentlessly hunt down fixer-uppers, a wealthy bank director who has been too busy to care about anyone else, a young couple who are about to have their first child but can’t seem to agree on anything, an eighty-seven-year-old woman who has lived long enough not to be afraid of someone waving a gun in her face, a flustered real estate agent, and a mystery man who has locked himself in the apartment’s only bathroom — truly the worst group of hostages in the world.


  • Hilderbrand, Elin
    Golden Girl : a novel
    Summary:Entering the afterlife due to a hit and run accident, a successful author learns she can observe the earthly lives of her nearly grown children and is also permitted three "nudges" to alter the outcome of events


  • Grisham, John
    A time for mercy
    Summary:Clanton, Mississippi, 1990: Jake Brigance finds himself embroiled in a deeply divisive trial when the court appoints him attorney for Drew Gamble, a timid sixteen-year-old boy accused of murdering a local deputy. Many in Clanton want a swift trial and the death penalty, but Brigance digs in and discovers that there is more to the story than meets the eye. Jake’s fierce commitment to saving Drew from the gas chamber puts his career, his financial security, and the safety of his family on the line. There is a time to kill and a time for justice. Now comes A Time for Mercy.


  • Coben, Harlan
    Win : a novel
    Summary:"Over twenty years ago, the heiress Patricia Lockwood was abducted during a robbery of her family’s estate, then locked inside an isolated cabin for months. Patricia escaped, but so did her captors — and the items stolen from her family were never recovered. Until now. On the Upper West Side, a recluse is found murdered in his penthouse apartment, alongside two objects of note: a stolen Vermeer painting and a leather suitcase bearing the initials WHL3. For the first time in years, the authorities have a lead — not only on Patricia’s kidnapping, but also on another FBI cold case — with the suitcase and painting both pointing them toward one man: Windsor Horne Lockwood III."


  • Grisham, John
    Sooley
    Summary:After seventeen-year-old Samuel Sooleymon receives a college scholarship to play basketball for North Carolina Central, he moves to Durham from his native, war-torn South Sudan, enrolls in classes, joins the team, and prepares to sit out his freshman season.Sooley has a fierce determination to succeed so he can bring his family to America, working tirelessly on his game until he dominates everyone in practice, and when Sooley is called off the bench, the legend begins.


  • Baldacci, David
    A gambling man
    Summary:The 1950s are on the horizon, and Archer is in dire need of a fresh start. He hops on a bus and begins the long journey out west to California, where rumor has it there is money to be made for someone who’s hard-working, lucky, a criminal, or all three. Along the way, Archer stops in Reno, where a stroke of fortune delivers him a wad of cash and an eye-popping blood-red 1939 Delahaye convertible, plus a companion for the final leg of the journey, an aspiring actress named Liberty Callahan who is planning to try her luck in Hollywood. But when the two arrive in Bay Town, California, Archer quickly discovers that the hordes of people who flocked there seeking fame and fortune landed in a false paradise that instead caters to their worst addictions and fears. Archer lands
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    NOBLE’s Most Popular Books of 2021

    Here are lists of the most-borrowed print books and ebooks for 2021, linked to the library catalog to make it easy to find and request them!

    Adult Fiction

    Adult Fiction OverDrive eBooks

    Adult Nonfiction

    Adult Nonfiction OverDrive eBooks

    Children’s Books

    Children’s OverDrive eBooks

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    Women’s History Month: Children’s Books


  • Harrison, Vashti
    Little dreamers : visionary women around the world
    Summary:
    Featuring the true stories of women creators and thinkers from around the world, throughout history, this book shows that sometimes seeing things a little differently can lead to big changes. Some names are well known, some are not, but all the women had a lasting effect on the fields they worked in. Whether they were breaking ground for innovative structures or breaking rules and creating new ones, the women profiled here not only made a place for themselves in the world but made the world a better place to live.


  • Menéndez, Juliet
    Latinitas : celebrating big dreamers in history!
    Summary:"A celebration of Latinas and Latin American women who followed their dreams, with portraits and short bios."


  • Cavallo, Francesca
    Good night stories for rebel girls. 2
    Summary:While still inspiring rebel girls of the world to dream bigger, aim higher, and fight harder, this sequel is bigger than each of us, bigger than our individual hopes, and certainly bigger than our fears.


  • Cline-Ransome, Lesa
    Not playing by the rules : 21 female athletes who changed sports
    Summary:Profiles noteworthy women athletes from field hockey pioneer Constance Applebee to Little League pitcher Mo’ne Davis, including Althea Gibson, Mia Hamm, and Syrian refugee swimmer Yusra Mardini.


  • Hudson, Cheryl Willis
    Brave. Black. First. : 50+ African American women who changed the world
    Summary:Profiles notable African American women in various fields from Phillis Wheatley, Harriet Tubman, and Ida B. Wells to Condoleeza Rice, Beyoncé, and the founders of Black Lives Matter.


  • Freeman, Martha
    Born curious : 20 girls who grew up to be awesome scientists
    Summary:"A collection of biographies of twenty groundbreaking women scientists who were curious kids and grew up to make incredible discoveries."

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    Celebrating John Steinbeck


  • Steinbeck, John
    The grapes of wrath
    Summary:The Grapes of Wrath is a landmark of American literature. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. Although it follows the movement of thousands of men and women and the transformation of an entire nation, The Grapes of Wrath is also the story of one Oklahoma family, the Joads, who are driven off their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity.


  • Steinbeck, John
    The moon is down
    Summary:Depicts the Norwegian people’s staunch resistance to the Nazi occupation.


  • Steinbeck, John
    East of Eden
    Summary:The biblical account of Cain and Abel is echoed in the history of two generations of the Trask family in California.


  • Steinbeck, John
    In dubious battle
    Summary:A riveting novel of labor strife and apocalyptic violence, now a major motion picture starring James Franco, Bryan Cranston, Selena Gomez, and Zach BraffA Penguin ClassicAt once a relentlessly fast-paced, admirably observed novel of social unrest and the story of a young man’s struggle for identity, In Dubious Battle is set in the California apple country, where a strike by migrant workers against rapacious landowners spirals out of control, as a principled defiance metamorphoses into blind fanaticism. Caught in the upheaval is Jim Nolan, a once aimless man who find himself in the course of the strike, briefly becomes its leader, and is ultimately crushed in its service.


  • Steinbeck, John
    Travels with Charley : in search of America
    Summary:Steinbeck hits the highways with his French poodle, Charley. In a custom-built camper he named Rosinante after Don Quixote’s steed, the two traveled the country–10,000 miles and 34 states. Their varied experiences comprise several slices of small-town, back-roads Americana. Steinbeck laments the rise of plastic-covered everything, the vacuousness of "sad souls" he encounters, and the homogenization of local and regional culture. But bright spots abound, and Steinbeck rarely forsakes his humor and his hope in the human spirit. He reluctantly swings through the segregated Deep South before he concludes his trip. Here, the ugly specter of racism pervades all, and Steinbeck’s chronicle is profoundly disturbing.


  • Steinbeck, John
    Of mice and men
    Summary:Set in depresson-era California this book tells a story about the strange relationship of two migrant workers, who dream of better days on a ranch of their own. When they land jobs on a ranch in the Salinas Valley, the fulfillment of their dreams seems within their grasp until one of them succumbs to his weakness for soft, helpless creatures and commits an unintentional act of violence. Tragic tale of a retarded man and the friend who loves and tries to protect him.


  • Steinbeck, John
    The red pony
    Summary:Traces a boy’s journey into manhood after his father gives him a pony to train and care for.

  • Steinbeck, John
    The pearl
    Summary:For the diver Kino, finding a magnificent pearl means the promise of a better life for his impoverished family. His dream blinds him to the greed and suspicions the pearl arouses in him and his neighbors, and even his loving wife cannot temper his obsession or stem the events leading to tragedy. Kino and his wife illustrate the fall from innocence of people who believe that wealth erases all problems.


  • Steinbeck, John
    Sweet Thursday
    Summary:“In Monterey, on the California coast, Sweet Thursday is what they call the day after Lousy Wednesday, which is one of those days that is just naturally bad. Returning to the scene of “Cannery Row”, the weedy lots and junk heaps and flophouses of Monterey, John Steinbeck once more brings to life the denizens of a netherworld of laughter and tears – from Fauna, new headmistress of the local brothel, to Hazel, a bum whose mother must have wanted a daughter. [Illustrates the theme that] ‘the common bonds of humanity and love make goodness and happiness possible’ “–P. 4 of cover


  • Steinbeck, John
    Tortilla flat
    Summary:In the shabby district called Tortilla Flat above Monterey, California lives a gang whose exploits compare to those of King Arthur’s knights.


  • Steinbeck, John
    The winter of our discontent
    Summary:Ethan Allen Hawley, the protagonist of Steinbeck’s last novel, works as a clerk in a grocery store that his family once owned. With Ethan no longer a member of Long Island’s aristocratic class, his wife is restless, and his teenage children are hungry for the tantalizing material comforts he cannot provide. Then one day, in a moment of moral crisis, Ethan decides to take a holiday from his own scrupulous standards. Set in Steinbeck’s contemporary 1960 America, the novel explores the tenuous line between private and public honesty, and today ranks alongside his most acclaimed works of penetrating insight into the American condition.


  • Steinbeck, John
    Cannery row
    Summary:Vividly depicts the colorful, sometimes disreputable, inhabitants of a run-down area in Monterey, California.

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    Discover the Lives of Women Authors


  • Gary, Amy
    In the great green room : the brilliant and bold life of Margaret Wise Brown
    Summary:Captures the exceptional life, imagination, and passion of the author of "Goodnight Moon," drawing on unpublished manuscripts, songs, personal letters, and diaries that the author discovered in the attic of Margaret Wise Brown’s sister.,"The extraordinary life of the woman behind the beloved children’s classics Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny comes alive in this fascinating biography of Margaret Wise Brown. Margaret’s books have sold millions of copies all over the world, but few people know that she was at the center of a children’s book publishing revolution. Her whimsy and imagination fueled a steady stream of stories, songs, and poems, and she was renowned for her prolific writing and business savvy, as well as her stunning beauty and endless thirst for adventure. "–Dust jacket.


  • Grande, Reyna
    The distance between us
    Summary:"At the age of 8, Reyna Grande made the dangerous and illegal trek across the border from Mexico to the United States, and discovered that the American Dream is much more complicated than it seemed."–Provided by publisher.


  • Shields, Charles J.
    I am Scout : the biography of Harper Lee
    Summary:This biography tells the story of how Harper Lee struggled to become an author and created one of the most popular novels of the 20th century.


  • Daugherty, Tracy
    The last love song : a biography of Joan Didion
    Summary:Explores the life of the distinguished American author and journalist, following Didion’s life as a young woman in Sacramento to her adult life as a writer interviewing those who know and knew her personally.


  • Veevers, Marian
    Jane and Dorothy : a true tale of sense and sensibility : the lives of Jane Austen and Dorothy Wordsworth
    Summary:"An intimate portrait of Jane Austen, Dorothy Wordsworth, and their world– two women torn between revolutionary ideas and fierce conservatism, artistic creativity and emotional upheavals."–Front jacket flap.


  • Moser, Benjamin
    Sontag
    Summary:"Benjamin Moser’s Sontag, a biography of Susan Sontag, is a portrait of the iconoclastic and prolific essayist, novelist, and critic and her role in the history of American intellectualism."

  • Bagge, Peter
    Fire!! : the Zora Neale Hurston story
    Summary:"Peter Bagge has defied the expectations of the comics industry by changing gears from his famous slacker hero Buddy Bradley to documenting the life and times of historical 20th century trailblazers. If Bagge had not already had a New York Times bestseller with his biography of Margaret Sanger, his newest biography, Fire!!: The Zora Neale Hurston Story, would seem to be an unfathomable pairing of author and subject. Yet through Bagge’s skilled cartooning, he turns what could be a rote biography into a bold and dazzling graphic novel, creating a story as brilliant as the life itself. Hurston challenged the norms of what was expected of an African American woman in early 20th century society. The fifth of eight kids from a Baptist family in Alabama, Hurston’s writing prowess blossomed at Howard University, and then Barnard College, where she was the sole black student. She arrived in NYC at the height of the Harlem Renaissance and quickly found herself surrounded by peers such as Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman. Hurston went on to become a noted folklorist and critically acclaimed novelist, including her most provocative work Their Eyes Were Watching God. Despite these landmark achievements, personal tragedies and shifting political winds in the midcentury rendered her almost forgotten by the end of her life. With admiration and respect, Bagge reconstructs her vivid life in resounding full-color."


  • Franklin, Ruth
    Shirley Jackson : a rather haunted life
    Summary:"Still known to millions only as the author of the "The Lottery," Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) remains curiously absent from the American literary canon. A genius of literary suspense, Jackson plumbed the cultural anxiety of postwar America better than anyone. Now, biographer Ruth Franklin reveals the tumultuous life and inner darkness of the author behind such classics as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Placing Jackson within an American Gothic tradition of Hawthorne and Poe, Franklin demonstrates how her unique contribution to this genre came from her focus on "domestic horror" drawn from an era hostile to women. Based on a wealth of previously undiscovered correspondence and dozens of new interviews, Shirley Jackson, with its exploration of astonishing talent shaped by a damaged childhood and a troubled marriage to literary critic Stanley Hyman, becomes the definitive biography of a generational avatar and an American literary giant."


  • Martinetti, Anne
    Agatha : the real life of Agatha Christie
    Summary:The life of Agatha Christie was as mysterious and eventful as her fiction. This beautifully illustrated graphic novel traces the life of the Queen of Whodunnit from her childhood in Torquay, England, through a career filled with success, mischief, and adventure, to her later years as Dame Agatha. Revealing a side to Christie that will surprise and delight many readers, Agatha introduces us to a free-spirited and thoroughly modern woman who, among other things, enjoyed flying, travel, and surfing.


  • Lahiri, Jhumpa
    In other words
    Summary:"A series of reflections on the author’s experiences learning a new language and living abroad, in a dual-language edition."


  • Tan, Amy
    Where the past begins : a writer’s memoir
    Summary:“From New York Times bestselling author Amy Tan, a memoir on her life as a writer, her childhood, and the symbiotic relationship between fiction and emotional memory.”


  • Kröger, Lisa.
    Monster, she wrote : the women who pioneered horror & speculative fiction
    Summary:"Horror and speculative fiction wouldn’t exist without the women who created it. From forgotten visionaries like Margaret ‘Mad Madge’ Cavendish, to literary icons like Mary Shelley and Shirley Jackson, to modern-era marvels such as Anne Rice and Helen Oyeyemi, women authors have always been at the vanguard of frightening fiction. And their life stories are as intriguing as the novels, short stories, and novellas they crafted. Part biography, part reader’s guide, Monster, She Wrote will introduce you to
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    Research databases


    Like Angie Thomas? Try these titles!


  • Thomas, Angie
    On the come up
    Summary:When sixteen-year-old Bri, an aspiring rapper, pours her anger and frustration into her first song, she finds herself at the center of a controversy.


  • Reynolds, Jason
    Lu
    Summary:"Lu knows he can lead Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and the team to victory at the championships, but it might not be as easy as it seems. Suddenly, there are hurdles in Lu’s way–literally and not-so-literally–and Lu needs to figure out, fast, what winning the gold really means"–


  • Acevedo, Elizabeth
    With the fire on high


  • Stone, Nic
    Jackpot
    Summary:"When Rico sells a jackpot-winning lotto ticket, she thinks maybe her luck will finally change, but only if she and her popular and wildly rich classmate, Zan can find the ticket holder who hasn’t claimed the prize"–


  • Shakur, Tupac
    The rose that grew from concrete
    Summary:His talent was unbounded, a raw force that commanded attention and respect. His death was tragic — a violent homage to the power of his voice. His legacy is indomitable — remaining vibrant and alive. Here now, newly discovered, are Tupac’s most honest and intimate thoughts conveyed through the pure art of poetry — a mirror into his enigmatic life and its many contradictions. Written in his own hand at the age of nineteen, they embrace his spirit, his energy … and his ultimate message of hope.

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    While you wait for Bridgerton Season 2


  • James, Eloisa
    Wilde in love : The Wildes of Lindow Castle
    Summary:Lord Alaric Wilde, son of the Duke of Lindow, is the most celebrated man in England, revered for his dangerous adventures and rakish good looks. Arriving home from years abroad, he has no idea of his own celebrity, until his boat is met by mobs of screaming ladies. Alaric escapes to his father’s castle, but just as he grasps that he’s not only famous but notorious, he encounters the very private, very witty Miss Willa Ffynche.


  • Hibbert, Talia
    Get a life, Chloe Brown
    Summary:Chloe Brown is a chronically ill computer geek with a goal, a plan, and a list. After almost (but not quite) dying, she’s come up with seven directives to help her, and she’s already completed the first: finally moving out of her glamorous family’s mansion. The next items? Enjoy a drunken night out; ride a motorcycle; go camping; have meaningless but thoroughly enjoyable sex; travel the world with nothing but hand luggage; and do something bad. But it’s not easy being bad, even when you’ve written step-by-step guidelines on how to do it correctly. What Chloe needs is a teacher, and she knows just the man for the job. Redford ‘Red’ Morgan is a handyman with tattoos, a motorcycle, and more sex appeal than ten thousand Hollywood heartthrobs. He’s also an artist who paints at night and hides his work in the light of day, which Chloe knows because she spies on him occasionally. Just the teeniest, tiniest bit.


  • Bowen, Kelly
    Duke of my heart
    Summary:When he finds a naked–and very much dead–earl tied to his missing sister’s bed, Captain Maximus Harcourt turns to Miss Ivory Moore, who is known throughout London for smoothing over scandals, for help and is drawn to this fearless woman who takes charge of the situation–and his heart.


  • Balogh, Mary
    Someone to love
    Summary:"Humphrey Wescott, Earl of Riverdale, has died, leaving behind a fortune and a scandalous secret that will forever alter the lives of everyone in his family–including the daughter no one knew he had…. Anna Snow grew up in an orphanage in Bath, knowing nothing of the family she came from. Now she discovers that the late Earl of Riverdale was her father and that she has inherited his fortune. She is also overjoyed to learn she has siblings. However, they want nothing to do with her or her attempts to share her new wealth. But the new earl’s guardian is interested in Anna….Avery Archer, Duke of Netherby, keeps others at a distance. Yet something prompts him to aid Anna in her transition from orphan to lady. As London society and Anna’s newfound relatives threaten to overwhelm her, Avery steps in to rescue her and finds himself vulnerable to feelings and desires he has hidden so well for so long."


  • Waters, Martha
    To have and to hoax : a novel
    Summary:"In this fresh and hilarious historical rom-com, an estranged husband and wife in Regency England feign accidents and illness in an attempt to gain attention-and maybe just win each other back in the process. Five years ago, Lady Violet Grey and Lord James Audley met, fell in love, and got married. Four years ago, they had a fight to end all fights, and have barely spoken since. Their once-passionate love match has been reduced to one of cold, detached politeness. But when Violet receives a letter that James has been thrown from his horse and rendered unconscious at their country estate, she races to be by his side-only to discover him alive and well at a tavern, and completely unaware of her concern. She’s outraged. He’s confused. And the distance between them has never been more apparent. Wanting to teach her estranged husband a lesson, Violet decides to feign an illness of her own. James quickly sees through it, but he decides to play along in an ever-escalating game of manipulation, featuring actors masquerading as doctors, threats of Swiss sanitariums, faux mistresses-and a lot of flirtation between a husband and wife who might not hate each other as much as they thought. Will the two be able to overcome four years of hurt or will they continue to deny the spark between them?"


  • Cole, Alyssa
    A princess in theory: reluctant royals
    Summary:"Between grad school and multiple jobs, Naledi Smith doesn’t have time for fairy tales…or patience for the constant e-mails claiming she’s betrothed to an African prince. Sure. Right. Delete! As a former foster kid, she’s learned that the only things she can depend on are herself and the scientific method, and a silly e-mail won’t convince her otherwise. Prince Thabiso is the sole heir to the throne of Thesolo, shouldering the hopes of his parents and his people. At the top of their list? His marriage. Ever dutiful, he tracks down his missing betrothed. When Naledi mistakes the prince for a pauper, Thabiso can’t resist the chance to experience life—and love—without the burden of his crown. The chemistry between them is instant and irresistible, and flirty friendship quickly evolves into passionate nights. But when the truth is revealed, can a princess in theory become a princess ever after?"–Back cover.


  • Dunmore, Evie
    Bringing down the duke
    Summary:England, 1879. Annabelle Archer, the brilliant but destitute daughter of a country vicar, has earned herself a place among the first cohort of female students at the renowned University of Oxford. In return for her scholarship, she must support the rising women’s suffrage movement. Her charge: recruit men of influence to champion their cause. Her target: Sebastian Devereux, the cold and calculating Duke of Montgomery who steers Britain’s politics at the Queen’s command. Her challenge: not to give in to the powerful attraction she can’t deny for the man who opposes everything she stands for. Sebastian is appalled to find a suffragist squad has infiltrated his ducal home, but the real threat is his impossible feelings for green-eyed beauty Annabelle. He is looking for a
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    Presidents Day Picture Books


  • McNamara, Margaret.
    George Washington’s birthday : a mostly true tale
    Summary:On George Washington’s seventh birthday, he does chores, misbehaves, and dreams of a day when his birthday will be celebrated by all.


  • Meltzer, Brad
    I am Abraham Lincoln
    Summary:Follows Abraham Lincoln from his childhood to the presidency, showing how he spoke up about fairness and eventually led the country to abolish slavery.


  • Rockwell, Anne F.
    Big George : how a shy boy became President Washington
    Summary:Portrays George Washington as a shy boy who wasn’t afraid of anything except talking to people, but who grew up to lead an army against the British and serve as president of the new nation.


  • Hopkinson, Deborah
    Abe Lincoln crosses a creek : a tall, thin tale (introducing his forgotten frontier friend)
    Summary:In Knob Creek, Kentucky, in 1816, seven-year-old Abe Lincoln falls into a creek and is rescued by his best friend, Austin Gollaher.


  • Thomson, Sarah L.
    What Lincoln said
    Summary:The author integrates Lincoln’s famous words into the narrative, revealing the inspiration and determination that led to his greatest achievements.


  • Cullen, Lynn
    Dear Mr. Washington
    Summary:In April, 1796, young Charlotte Stuart writes a series of letters to George Washington, whose portrait’s being painted by her father, reporting on her efforts and those of her brothers to follow the rules of good behavior in the book Mr. Washington gave them. Includes historical notes.


  • Slade, Suzanne.
    The house that George built
    Summary:Shares the story of how George Washington had a home built for the future presidents.


  • Daugherty, James Henry
    Lincoln’s Gettysburg address : a pictorial interpretation
    Summary:A pictorial interpretation of the sixteenth president’s famous speech introduces a new generation of readers to its enduring legacy while placing the speech against the backdrop of a crucial period in Lincoln’s presidency.


  • Small, David
    George Washington’s cows
    Summary:Humorous rhymes about George Washington’s farm where the cows wear dresses, the pigs wear wigs, and the sheep are scholars.


  • Burleigh, Robert.
    Abraham Lincoln comes home
    Summary:Told through the eyes of a young boy, the sober mood of the country after the Lincoln assassination is presented as he and many other mourners await to pay their respects to their fallen president as Lincoln’s funeral train travels from Washington, D.C. to Springfield, IL in 1865.


  • Meltzer, Brad
    I am George Washington
    Summary:George Washington was one of the greatest leaders the world has ever known. He was never afraid to be the first to try something, from exploring the woods around his childhood home to founding a brand new nation, the United States of America.

  • Smith, Lane
    Abe Lincoln’s dream
    Summary:When a schoolgirl gets separated from her tour of the White House and finds herself in the Lincoln bedroom, she also discovers the ghost of the great man himself.

  • Engle, Margarita
    Dancing hands : how Teresa Carreno played the piano for President Lincoln
    Summary:In soaring words and stunning illustrations, Margarita Engle and Rafael López tell the story of Teresa Carreño, a child prodigy who played piano for Abraham Lincoln. As a little girl, Teresa Carreño loved to let her hands dance across the beautiful keys of the piano. If she felt sad, music cheered her up, and when she was happy, the piano helped her share that joy. Soon she was writing her own songs and performing in grand cathedrals. Then a revolution in Venezuela forced her family to flee to the United States. Teresa felt lonely in this unfamiliar place, where few of the people she met spoke Spanish. Worst of all, there was fighting in her new home, too—the Civil War. Still, Teresa kept playing, and soon she grew famous as the talented Piano Girl who could play anything from a folk song to a sonata. So famous, in fact, that President Abraham Lincoln wanted her to play at the White House! Yet with the country torn apart by war, could Teresa’s music bring comfort to those who needed it most?


  • McCully, Emily Arnold.
    The escape of Oney Judge
    Summary:Young Oney Judge risks everything to escape a life of slavery in the household of George and Martha Washington and to make her own way as a free black woman.


  • Swanson, Shari
    Honey, the dog who saved Abe Lincoln
    Summary:"Based on a little-known tale from Abraham Lincoln’s childhood, this deeply researched book tells the true story Abraham Lincoln being rescued from a cave by a dog named Honey. Based on primary sources."


  • Adler, David A.
    A parade for George Washington
    Summary:"Follows George Washington’s journey from Virginia to New York in anticipation of his inauguration at Federal Hall in New York City on April 30, 1789."

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    Darwin Day


  • Wilson, A. N.
    Charles Darwin : Victorian mythmaker
    Summary:A radical reappraisal of Darwin argues that the evolution pioneer was less of an original scientific intellect than a ruthless self-promoter who did not give credit to the actual sages whose ideas he advanced in his history-shaping book.


  • Ashton, Rosemary
    One hot summer : Dickens, Darwin, Disraeli, and the great stink of 1858
    Summary:"A unique, in-depth view of Victorian London during the record-breaking summer of 1858, when residents both famous and now-forgotten endured ‘The Great Stink’ together. While 1858 in London may have been noteworthy for its broiling summer months and the related stench of the sewage-filled Thames River, the year is otherwise little remembered. And yet, historian Rosemary Ashton reveals in this compelling microhistory, 1858 was marked by significant, if unrecognized, turning points. For ordinary people, and also for the rich, famous, and powerful, the months from May to August turned out to be a summer of consequence. Ashton mines Victorian letters and gossip, diaries, court records, newspapers, and other contemporary sources to uncover historically crucial moments in the lives of three protagonists–Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, and Benjamin Disraeli. She also introduces others who gained renown in the headlines of the day, among them George Eliot, Karl Marx, William Thackeray, and Edward Bulwer Lytton. Ashton reveals invisible threads of connection among Londoners at every social level in 1858, bringing the celebrated city and its citizens vibrantly to life"–Provided by publisher.


  • Grolleau, Fabien
    Darwin : an exceptional voyage
    Summary:"When the young amateur naturalist Charles Darwin boarded the HMS Beagle in 1831, he had no idea what lay in store on his five-year voyage across the world. Darwin was disenchanted, moved, scandalised and awestruck by the vast discoveries that he made on his journey. On his return, he wrote his famous and controversial theory on the evolution of species. This long, perilous exploration was a journey that changed a man, and in doing so, the course of science itself."


  • Desmond, Adrian J.
    Darwin’s sacred cause : how a hatred of slavery shaped Darwin’s views on human evolution
    Summary:There is a mystery surrounding Darwin: How did this quiet, respectable gentleman, a pillar of his parish, come to embrace one of the most radical ideas in the history of human thought? Darwin risked a great deal in publishing his theory of evolution, so something very powerful–a moral fire–must have propelled him. That moral fire, argue authors Desmond and Moore, was a passionate hatred of slavery. They draw on a wealth of fresh manuscripts, correspondence, notebooks, diaries, and even ships’ logs to show how Darwin’s abolitionism had deep roots in his mother’s family and was reinforced by his voyage on the Beagle as well as by events in America. Leading apologists for slavery in Darwin’s time argued that blacks and whites were separate species, with whites created superior. Darwin believed that the races belonged to the same human family, and slavery was therefore a sin.–From publisher description.


  • Heiligman, Deborah.
    Charles and Emma : the Darwins’ leap of faith
    Summary:Charles Darwin and his wife, Emma, were deeply in love and very supportive of each other, but their opinions often clashed. Emma was extremely religious, and Charles questioned God’s very existence.


  • Gopnik, Adam.
    Angels and ages : a short book about Darwin, Lincoln, and modern life
    Summary:On February 12, 1809, two men were born an ocean apart: Abraham Lincoln in a one-room Kentucky log cabin; Charles Darwin on an English country estate. Each would see his life’s work inspire a stark change in mankind’s understanding of itself. In this bicentennial twin portrait, Adam Gopnik shows how these two giants, who never met, altered the way we think about death and time–about the very nature of earthly existence.


  • Costa, James T.
    Darwin’s backyard : how small experiments led to a big theory
    Summary:"James T. Costa takes readers on a journey from Darwin’s childhood through his voyage on the HMS Beagle where his ideas on evolution began. We then follow Darwin to Down House, his bustling home of forty years, where he kept porcupine quills at his desk to dissect barnacles, maintained a flock of sixteen pigeon breeds in the dovecote, and cultivated climbing plants in the study, and to Bournemouth, where on one memorable family vacation he fed carnivorous plants in the soup dishes. Using his garden and greenhouse, the surrounding meadows and woodlands, and even taking over the cellar, study, and hallways of his home-turned-field-station, Darwin tested ideas of his landmark theory of evolution with an astonishing array of hands-on experiments that could be done on the fly, without specialized equipment. He engaged naturalists, friends, neighbors, family servants, and even his children, nieces, nephews, and cousins as assistants in these experiments, which involved everything from chasing bees and tempting fish to eat seeds to serenading earthworms. From the experiments’ results, he plumbed the laws of nature and evidence for the revolutionary arguments of On the Origin of Species and his other watershed works. Beyond Darwin at work, we accompany him against the backdrop of his enduring marriage, chronic illness, grief at the loss of three children, and joy in scientific revelation. This unique glimpse of Darwin’s life introduces us to an enthusiastic correspondent, crowd-sourcer, family man, and, most of all, an incorrigible observer and experimenter."–Jacket flap.

  • Stott, Rebecca.
    Darwin’s ghosts : the secret history of evolution
    Summary:Christmas, 1859. Just one month after the publication of On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin received an unsettling letter. He had expected criticism; in fact, letters were arriving daily, most expressing outrage and accusations of heresy. But this letter was different. It accused him of failing to acknowledge his predecessors, of taking credit for a theory that had already been discovered by others. Darwin realized that he had made an error in omitting from Origin of Species any mention of his intellectual forebears. Yet when he tried to trace all of the natural philosophers who had laid the groundwork for his theory,
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