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In 1937, during the Depression, fifteen-year-old Mary Alice, initially apprehensive about leaving Chicago to spend a year with her fearsome, larger-than-life grandmother in rural Illinois, gradually begins to better understand and admire her grandmother's unusual qualities.
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In a small town in 1928, a twelve-year-old boy savors the magic of childhood and the wonders of summer.
Ray Bradbury's moving recollection of a vanished golden era remains one of his most enchanting novels. Dandelion Wine stands out in the Bradbury literary canon as the author's most deeply personal work, a semi-autobiographical recollection of a magical small-town summer in 1928. Twelve-year-old Douglas Spaulding knows Green Town, Illinois, is...
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"William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him. So it's a relief when his skill on the basketball court earns him a scholarship to college, far away from his childhood home. He soon meets Julia Padavano, a spirited and ambitious young woman who surprises William with her appreciation of his quiet steadiness. With Julia comes her family; she is inseparable from her three...
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One afternoon, Julia Evarts and her five year old daughter, Gracie, arrive home to find an unexpected gift on the front porch: a homemade loaf of Amish Friendship Bread and a simple note: I hope you enjoy it. Also included are a bag of starter, instructions on how to make the bread herself, and a request to share it with others.
6) Illinois
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Provides an overview of the state of Illinois, covering its history, geography, economy, people, and points of interest.
8) Illinois
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Describes the history, geography, ecology, people, economy, cities, and sights of Illinois.
9) Escape
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As Chicago's special-ops leader Detective Billy Harney knows well, money is not the only valuable currency. The billionaire he's investigating is down to his last twenty million. But he's also being held in jail. For now. Billy's unit is called to the jail when six inmates escape, and two others are missing. Two correctional officers are dead. Approaching the scene, Billy spots something in an empty lot. Two Kevlar vests. Two helmets. Two assault...
11) Extra credit
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As letters flow back and forth--between the prairies of Illinois and the mountains of Afghanistan, across cultural and religious divides--sixth-grader Abby, ten-year-old Amira, and eleven-year-old Sadeed begin to speak and listen to each other.
12) Grave peril
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Wizard Harry Dresden's faced some pretty terrifying foes during his career. Giant scorpions. Oversexed vampires. Psychotic werewolves. It comes with the territory when you're the only professional wizard in the Chicago-area phone book. But in all Harry's years of supernatural sleuthing, he's never faced anything like this: the spirit world has gone postal. All over Chicago, ghosts are causing trouble--and not just of the door-slamming, boo-shouting...
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In Partonville, a tiny southern Illinois farming town, 87-year-old Dorothy Jean Wetstra is the self-proclaimed town matriarch. She's a regular in the main street cafe, where she helps herself to doughnuts and gossip. And she's a Wild Musketeer on the senior citizens' softball team. Aware of her own limitations, she often asks "the Big Guy" in heaven for help with the town's problems: "Dear Lord, DO SOMETHING!"
14) Farewell summer
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October first, the air is still warm, but fall is rolling in. Thirteen-year-old Douglas Spaulding, his younger brother Tom, and their friends do their best to take advantage of these last warm days, tormenting the girls... and declaring war on the old men who run Green Town, IL. For the boys know that Mr. Quartermain and his cohorts want nothing more than to force them to grow up. If only, the boys believe, they could stop the clock atop the courthouse...
15) The Eighth Day
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Thornton Wilder's renowned 1967 National Book Award–winning novel features a foreword by John Updike and an afterword by Tappan Wilder, who draws on such unique sources as Wilder's unpublished letters, handwritten annotations in the margins of the book, and other illuminating documentary material. In 1962 and 1963, Thornton Wilder spent twenty months in hibernation, away from family and friends, in the town of Douglas, Arizona. While there, he launched...
16) Before I wake
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Welcome to Justice, and good luck leaving alive. Sheriff Nathan Justice loves the town he serves. Founded by his family generations before, Justice, Illinois, is mostly a peaceful place. But the tranquility has just been shattered. Women visiting Justice are being murdered. Tourists in nice hotels, money still in their billfolds, jewelry still on the dresser. Quiet kills{7f2014}they go to sleep and never awaken. Rae Gabriella left the FBI after an...
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Enjoy the humorous and true-to-life adventures of 87- year-old "youngster," Dorothy Wetstra, in this highly engaging sequel to Dearest Dorothy, Are We There Yet?. Reflecting the pace, the memories and the friendships of small-town America, Dorothy's faith-filled adventures will touch your heart and tickle your funny bone at the same time.
18) Becoming
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"An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States. When she was a little girl, Michelle Robinson's world was the South Side of Chicago, where she and her brother, Craig, shared a bedroom in their family's upstairs apartment and played catch in the park, and where her parents, Fraser and Marian Robinson, raised her to be outspoken and unafraid. But life soon took her much further afield, from the halls of Princeton,...
19) The Red Book
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To Detective Billy Harney, the newest member of the Chicago PD's elite strike force--Special Operations Section--getting shot in the head, stalked by a state's attorney, and accused of murder by his fellow cops is all part of breaking a case. So when a drive-by shooting on Chicago's West Side turns political, he leads the way to a quick solve. But Harney's instincts--his father was once chief of detectives and his twin sister, Patti, is also on the...
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Addie Downs and Valerie Adler will be best friends forever. That's what Addie believes after Valerie moves across the street when they're both nine years old. But in the wake of betrayal during their teenage years, Val is swept into the popular crowd, while mousy, sullen Addie becomes her school's scapegoat. Flash-forward fifteen years. Valerie Adler has found a measure of fame and fortune working as the weathergirl at the local TV station. Addie...