Central Kansas Library System

A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel--a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence, and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina and quiet...

Kelly Jenkins heads to bucolic Blue Moon, Alabama, believing a new life will heal the two orphaned children in her care. Signing on to revive the drive-in theater seems like a worthy venture, until she discovers the property is in deep disrepair. Still, spurred on by the elderly owner's plea, Kelly takes on the renovation, beginning with an ancient tree that needs to come down -- and unexpectedly bringing on the wrath of her reclusive neighbor . ....

"Superheroes have always been Leia Birch Briggs' weakness. One tequila-soaked night at a comics convention, the usually level-headed graphic novelist is swept off her barstool by a handsome and anonymous Batman. It turns out the caped crusader has left her with more than just a nice, fuzzy memory. She's having a baby boy--an unexpected but not unhappy development in the thirty-eight year-old's life. But before Leia can break the news of her impending...

"Glory Road tells the story of three generations of women navigating the uncertain pathways of their hearts during a summer that promises to bring change--whether they're ready for it or not"--

"Police Chief Jane Hardy is still reeling from the scandal that rocked her small-town department just as she took over for her retired father - the man who wrecked her life with one little lie. Now she's finally been reunited with her presumed-dead fifteen-year-old son, Will, and his father, documentarian Reid Bechtol. When a murder aboard the oil platform Zeus exposes an environmental terrorist's plot to flood Mobile Bay with crude oil, Jane and...

Minutes after the principal of Opportunity High School in Alabama finishes her speech welcoming the student body to a new semester, they discover that the auditorium doors will not open and someone starts shooting as four teens, each with a personal reason to fear the shooter, tell the tale from separate perspectives.

While visiting a small town in Alabama, the Aldens hear mysterious howls at midnight, leading them to wonder if an old local legend about a ghost dog is true.

San Piedro Island, north of Puget Sound, is a place so isolated that no one who lives there can afford to make enemies. But in 1954 a local fisherman is found suspiciously drowned, and a Japanese American named Kabuo Miyamoto is charged with his murder. In the course of the ensuing trial, it becomes clear that what is at stake is more than a man's guilt. For on San Pedro, memory grows as thickly as cedar trees and the fields of ripe strawberries--memories...

The jailhouse lawyer: A young lawyer takes on the judge who is destroying her hometown--and ends up in jail herself. In picture-perfect Erva, Alabama, the most serious crimes are misdemeanors. Speeding tickets. Shoplifting. Contempt of court. Then why is the jail so crowded? And why are so few prisoners released? There's only one place to learn the truth behind these incriminating secrets. Sometimes the best education a lawyer can get is a short stretch...

A chance encounter in a nursing home leads to an unexpected friendship between a dowdy housewife and a spry octagenarian who tells her the story of a fiercely independent woman half a century ago, inspiring the housewife to change her life, often with hilarious results.