Central Kansas Library System

Seventeen-year-old physics whiz Casey Carlyle is urged by her physics teacher to work on a physics project over the summer for presentation to Harvard. Since Casey is an ice skater she decides on a project that will show the elements of physics applied in competitive figure skating. To better understand the principles she's using, she will have to become her own test subject. She decides that she wants to skate on the Nationals circuit, but has some...

Sophie Heller's family emigrated from Germany to Victory, a small town in Illinois, before World War II began. Now that the war has affected the town, the townspeople discriminate against Sophie and her family. When a train derails by accident, the Heller family is blamed. A teacher from the local high school comes to Sophie's rescue, and despite their cultural differences, a romance starts to bloom.

With the help of his teacher, a young boy realizes that he not only shares his birthday and similar physical appearance with Abraham Lincoln, but that he is like him in other ways as well.

"We begin in suburban Indiana with Lina, a homemaker and mother of two whose marriage, after a decade, has lost its passion. She passes her days cooking and cleaning for a man who refuses to kiss her on the mouth, protesting that "the sensation offends" him. To Lina's horror, even her marriage counselor says her husband's position is valid. Starved for affection, Lina battles daily panic attacks. When she reconnects with an old flame through social...