Gabriel, twelve, gains new perspective when he becomes friends with Meriwether, a Black World War II hero who has recently returned to the unwelcoming Jim Crow South.

This is Mark Twain's first novel about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, and it has become one of the world's best-loved books. It is a fond reminiscence of life in Hannibal, Missouri, an evocation of Mark Twain's own boyhood along the banks of the Mississippi during the 1840s. "Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred," he tells us. This is a book one never forgets: Tom whitewashing Aunt Polly's fence, Tom and Huck's dreadful oath, their...

"Southern California, 1960s: endless sunny days surfing in Malibu, followed by glittering neon nights at Whisky A-Go-Go. In an era when women are expected to be housewives, Carol Donelly is breaking the mold as a legendary female surfer struggling to compete in a male-dominated sport--and her daughters, Mindy and Ginger, bear the weight of her unconventional lifestyle. The Donnelly sisters grow up enduring their mother's absence--physically, when...

Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain leaves behind a quiet life and a career as a college professor to fight for the Union. Native Virginian Gen. Robert E. Lee is forced to choose between his loyalty to the United States and his love of the Southern states where he was born and raised, and leads the Confederate army. Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson -- a man of great religious faith -- believes in a higher authority leading him and his men to certain,...