Central Kansas Library System

The life of a ten-year-old boy in rural Virginia expands when he becomes friends with a newcomer who subsequently meets an untimely death trying to reach their hideaway, Terabithia, during a storm. All summer, Jess pushed himself to be the fastest boy in the fifth grade, and when the year's first school-yard race was run, he was going to win. But his victory was stolen by a newcomer, by a girl, one who didn't even know enough to stay on the girls'...

Sandy Portman and Emily Barlow seem to lead a perfect life. Sandy is a successful businessman from an old-money family, and Emily, beautiful and smart, is quickly gaining respect in her career as a book editor. But Sandy is keeping a few secrets from Emily, and is hit by a car and killed before he has a chance to reveal the truth. In a Dickensian turn of events, he's given an otherworldly chance to make amends as a dog named Einstein.

When four year old Colton Burpo made it through an emergency appendectomy his family was overjoyed at his miraculous survival. What they weren't expecting, though, was the story that emerged in the following months, a story as beautiful as it was extraordinary, detailing their little boy's trip to heaven and back. This true story, retold by his father but using Colton's uniquely simple words, offers a glimpse of the world that awaits us, where as...

Eighteen-year-old Del is in a healthier place more than a year after a suicide attempt, but her aunt's terminal cancer diagnosis forces her to confront the demons she has been keeping at bay.

Following her mother's tragic death, seventeen-year-old Sarah takes on the role of caretaker to her grieving father and younger brother, which leaves little time and emotional energy for a relationship, but when a school project helps her rediscover her love of art, her perspective shifts. "It's been six months since Sarah's mom died. Three months since her dad fell apart. Sarah has left her fine arts boarding school to take care of her dad and her...

A journalist and essayist traces the difficult process of picking up the pieces of her life after it was shattered by the death of her husband, a Texan soldier whose Apache helicopter crashed in Iraq. His death mirrored the death of her own father in a military plane crash when she was five, leaving her own mother a young widow.