Central Kansas Library System

When a novel like Huckleberry Finn, or The Yearling, comes along it defies customary adjectives because of the intensity of the respouse it evokes in the reader. Such a book, we submit, is Old Yeller; to read this eloquently simple story of a boy and his dog in the Texas hill country is an unforgettable and deeply moving experience. Set in the rough wilderness of early frontier Texas, "Old Yeller" is a timeless coming-of-age tale. Travis is left to...

A teenaged girl kidnapped by outlaws, the mysterious wedding dress and the young man she comes to love.

You had to push to start a fight with Orrin Sackett, but not with his brother, Tyrel. Tye had been born to trouble, and the night he stepped between his brother and a bullet changed the course of both their lives forever.

McKenna Ashford moves west with her rebellious younger brother Robert. U.S. Marshall Wyatt Caradon's well-meant attempt to help the young man brings him face-to-face with the one situation he never wanted to encounter--and the one woman who holds the key to helping him find his future.

The story of lonely, harsh Hondo Lane, yet beneath the harshness and the necessary violence, he was a kind and just man who had come to terms with the land in which he lived.

When Trace Riley finds the smoldering ruins of a small wagon train, he recognizes the hand behind the attack as the same group who left him as sole survivor years ago. Living off the wilderness since then, he'd finally carved out a home and started a herd--while serving as a self-appointed guardian of the trail, driving off dangerous men. He'd hoped those days were over, but the latest attack shows he was wrong. Deborah Harkness saved her younger...

The Donner Party expedition is one of the most notorious stories in all of American history. It's also a fascinating snapshot of the westward expansion of the United States, and the families and individuals who sacrificed so much to build new lives in a largely unknown landscape. From the preparation for the journey to each disastrous leg of the trip, this book shows the specific bad decisions that led to the party's predicament in the Sierra Nevada...

In 1848, while on a wagon train headed for Oregon, fourteen-year-old Francis Tucket is kidnapped by Pawnee Indians and then falls in with a one-armed trapper who teaches him how to live in the wild. Fourteen-year-old Francis Tucket is heading west on the Oregon Trail with his family by wagon train. When he receives a rifle for his birthday, he is thrilled that he is being treated like an adult. But Francis lags behind to practice shooting and is captured...

During a trip back East, Preacher learns that even the civilized Midwest can attract a motherlode of trouble, especially when a gang of bully boys decides to pick a fight. Now a wealthy landowner lies dead and there's a reward on Preacher's head.

1890s Texas. Ex-cavalry officer Matthew Hanger leads a band of mercenaries who defend the innocent. When a rustler's bullet leaves one of them near death, they seek help from Dr. Josephine Burkett. When Josephine's brother is abducted and she is caught in the crossfire, Matthew may have to sacrifice everything to save her. -- adapted from back cover