Central Kansas Library System

Texas. 1921: A time of abundance. Elsa Wolcott meets Rafe Martinelli and changes the direction of her life. Her only choice: marriage to a man she barely knows. 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. Elsa Martinelli, like so many of her neighbors, must make an agonizing...

The tale of a passionate, independent woman and her three suitors, Far from the Madding Crowd tells the story of Bathsheba Everdene and her relationships with the devoted Gabriel Oak, the dashing Sergeant Troy, and the reclusive gentleman farmer, Mr. Boldwood. Through her wayward nature and a winding path of events propelled by Thomas Hardy's recurring feminist themes, Bathsheba is led to tragedy and, finally, true love. Written in 1874, Far from...

Pearl S. Buck's epic Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of a China that was -- now in a Contemporary Classics edition. Though more than sixty years have passed since this remarkable novel won the Pulitzer Prize, it has retained its popularity and become one of the great modern classics. "I can only write what I know, and I know nothing but China, having always lived there," wrote Pearl Buck. In The Good Earth she presents a graphic view of a China when...

"In the late 1970s, grain prices had tanked, farm auction notices filled newspapers, and people had forgotten that food didn't grow in grocery stores. So, on February 5, 1979, thousands of tractors from all parts of the US flooded Washington, DC, in protest. Author Lindsay H. Metcalf, a journalist who grew up on a family farm, shares this rarely told story of grassroots perseverance and economic justice. In 1979, US farmers traveled to Washington,...

When Adam Herschberger, who is known simply as The Beast, offers her a deal--marry him and her family can keep their farm--Annabell Beiler, to be a dutiful Amish daughter, agrees to his proposal and vows to break through his icy reserve.

"An eye-opening memoir of working-class poverty in the American Midwest. During Sarah Smarsh's turbulent childhood in Kansas in the 1980s and 1990s, the forces of cyclical poverty and the country's changing economic policies solidified her family's place among the working poor. By telling the story of her life and the lives of the people she loves, Smarsh challenges us to look more closely at the class divide in our country and examine the myths about...

"Grow our food, raise our cows and sheep, fill our tables with good things to eat! In this book, readers will meet the farmers who grow and raise the food that we need to live and thrive. Aimed at emergent readers, the text also includes vocabulary specific to this community helper's job, along with colorful action images"--

"In Farm Jobs, beginning readers will follow a farmer throughout the day, learning about the many jobs he or she does on the farm, from feeding and milking animals, to planting, harvesting, and helping deliver newborn farm animals. Vibrant, full-color photos and carefully leveled text will engage young readers as they are introduced to daily life on the farm. Photos and further detailed descriptions of daily duties help introduce the content, while...

It's Halloween in Buttercup, Texas, and reporter-turned-farmer Lucy Resnick is up to her ears in more than goats and wayward cows when exotic game ranch owner Bug Wharton turns up dead by a fatal dose of bee venom. When local witch and mead winery owner Seraphine Alexandre becomes the prime suspect, Lucy gets involved ... and soon discovers that all kinds of things are brewing in Buttercup, and some of them are deadly.

"Tike and Ella May Hamlin struggle to plant roots in the arid land of the Texas Panhandle. The husband and wife live in a precarious wooden farm shack, but Tike yearns for a sturdy house that will protect them from the treacherous elements. Thanks to a five-cent government pamphlet, Tike has the know-how to build a simple adobe dwelling, a structure made from the land itself-fireproof, windproof, Dust Bowl-proof. A house of earth. Though they are...