Central Kansas Library System

When it was first produced in 1959, A Raisin in the Sun was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for that season and hailed as a watershed in American drama. A pioneering work by an African-American playwright, the play was a radically new representation of black life. "A play that changed American theater forever." The story tells of a Black family's experiences in south Chicago, as they attempt to improve their financial circumstances...

Gincy Gannon Luongo escaped from the storybook small town of Appleville, New Hampshire twenty years ago. Now, she is bringing her teenage daughter Tasmin with her to visit her recently widowed mother in the weeks leading up to Christmas at her brother Tommy's urging. Her once feisty and strong-willed mother Ellen Gannon is mired in depression and her brother isn't doing much better. With each passing day, dealing with the imagined slights and lingering...

The first novel by Anthony Doerr, the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning author of Cloud Cuckoo Land, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning #1 New York Times bestseller All the Light We Cannot See, one of the most beautiful, wise, and compelling debuts of recent times.
David Winkler begins life in Anchorage, Alaska, a quiet boy drawn to the volatility of weather and obsessed with snow. Sometimes he sees...

"Imagine that your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret, something with the potential to destroy not just the life you built together, but the lives of others as well. Imagine, then, that you stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive. Cecilia Fitzpatrick has achieved it all; she is an incredibly successful businesswoman, a pillar of...

"Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn't spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy's childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy's life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two...

In the summer of 1976, during their annual retreat on Cape Cod, the McKotch family came apart. Now, twenty years after daughter Gwen was diagnosed with Turner's syndrome-a rare genetic condition that keeps her trapped forever in the body of a child-eminent scientist Frank McKotch is divorced from his pedigreed wife, Paulette. Eldest son Billy, a successful cardiologist, lives a life built on secrets and compromise. His brother Scott awakened from...

Eliza Benedict's peaceful suburban life is shattered after she is contacted by Walter Bowman, the man who kidnapped and held her hostage as a teen in 1985, and who now claims to want forgiveness while on death row.

Meditating on the weddings she has attended in Elm Creek Manor throughout the years on the morning of her daughter's wedding day, Sarah McClure evaluates the symbolic features on a wedding quilt designed to display the signatures of beloved guests.

"In the wake of his estranged wife's murder, widower Michael Forster returns to the Amish community he'd left as a teen. He wants a fresh start for himself and his daughter, Allie, away from those who still believe he's guilty. In River Haven, a quieter life seems possible. If only Allie's Amish schoolteacher, Catherine Brandt, was easier to ignore. A problem solver by nature, Cathy can tell Allie's withdrawn demeanor isn't due to shyness. But getting...

2 CHILDREN FOR SALE The sign is a last resort. It sits on a farmhouse porch in 1931, but could be found anywhere in an era of breadlines, bank runs and broken dreams. It could have been written by any mother facing impossible choices. For struggling reporter Ellis Reed, the gut-wrenching scene evokes memories of his family's dark past. He snaps a photograph of the children, not meant for publication. But when it leads to his big break, the consequences...