Central Kansas Library System

Since the 18th century, African Americans have been contributing important works to American literature. However, their writing has been treated differently than those produced by white authors. Readers discover the challenges black authors have faced in having their work published and being taken seriously by critics and readers alike. Engaging sidebars and detailed photographs augment this comprehensive overview of the racism that still persists...

The Trueba family embodies strong feelings from the beginning of the 2 through the assassination of Allende in 1973.

It is probably natural that a reader feel sympathy for Desdemona; falsely accused, she suffers some of the most offensive name-calling in all of Shakespeare. But it is also appropriate to sympathize with Othello. He becomes malleable in the hands of Iago who molds him to his own vindictive purpose, never disclosing his reasons. Additionally, one should admire Emilia who is truly heroic in her denial of the accusations against Desdemona, her resistance...

This is the story of Azar Nafisi's dream and of the nightmare that made it come true. For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. They were all former students whom she had taught at university. They were unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, but soon they began to open up and to speak more freely, not only about...

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 adventures of an unusual dog, part St. Bernard, part Scotch shepherd, that is forcibly taken to the Klondike goldfields where he eventually becomes the leader of a wolf pack. Includes illustrations and extended captions providing background information on history, geography, social customs, animals, architecture, literature, and science pertinent to the story.

"They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. For George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. When they...