Froggy is afraid of the water until his mother, along with his flippers, snorkle, and mask, help him learn to swim.

Toole's lunatic and sage novel introduces one of the most memorable characters in American literature, Ignatius Reilly, whom Walker Percy dubs "slob extraordinaire, a mad Oliver Hardy, a fat Don Quixote, a perverse Thomas Aquinas rolled into one." Set in New Orleans, A Confederacy of Dunces outswifts Swift, one of whose essays gives the book its title. As its characters burst into life, they leave the region and literature forever changed by their...

Alex and his mother write notes back and forth in which Alex tries to persuade her to let him have a baby iguana for a pet.

Although his mother is a little worried, a young boy is delighted to discover that every shop in town is giving away real dinosaurs to their customers.

"Eight or so decades ago, Eileen Webster was working a math problem on the blackboard of her Dayton, Ohio, classroom when an eraser bounced off a few feet to one side of her. The eraser had been launched by a classmate, Jim Dicke, who with characteristic directness had decided this would be a good way to gain the attention of the young woman standing at the front of a class. I was a hit or miss proposition so to speak, but it succeeded. Willeen and...

"Ocean Vuong's second collection of poetry looks inward, on the aftershocks of his mother's death, and the struggle - and rewards - of staying present in the world. Time Is a Mother moves outward and onward, in concert with the themes of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, as Vuong continues, through his work, his profound exploration of personal trauma, of what it means to be the product of an American war in America, and how to circle these fragmented...

Ten-year-old Zac Hutchinson collects facts: octopuses have three hearts, Usain Bolt is the fastest man on earth. But no one will tell him the one thing he wants to know most: who his father is and where he went. When Zac's mother, Juliet, inadvertently admits that his dad is the only man she's ever loved, Zac decides he is going to find him and deliver his mom the happily ever after she deserves. But Liam Jones left for a reason, and as Zac searches...

Donated

If you close your eyes, he'll get you. Sophie Dunston knows all too well how dreams can kill. As one of the nation's top sleep therapists, she specializes in the life-threatening night terrors that her ten-year-old son, Michael, suffers from. But she is also an expert in another kind of terror--the kind that can turn a dream life into a living nightmare in the blink of an eye.

Edith Wharton was an American novelist, poet and short story writer whose works display a mastery over the realistic fiction genre. One of her earliest and more experimental works was "Sanctuary". Written in 1903, the novella takes on a popular topic of debate in the early 1900s: nature versus nurture. Kate Orme marries a dishonest, sinful man who passes away, leaving her with a son. Fearing that he may inherit his father's immoral ways, Kate devotes...