Orem Library

Though he may not speak of them, the memories still dwell inside Jacob Jankowski's ninety-something-year-old mind. Memories of himself as a young man, tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Memories of a world filled with freaks and clowns, with wonder and pain and anger and passion; a world with its own narrow, irrational rules, its own way of life, and its own way of death. The world...

The author of the highly praised Buster Midnight's Cafe returns with a magical new novel about the ties that bind women together through good and bad. It is the 1930s, and hard times have hit Harveyville, Kansas, where the crops are burning up and there's not a job to be found. For Queenie Bean, a young farmwife, the highlight of each week is the gathering of the Persian Pickle Club (named after a favorite cloth pattern), a group of local ladies dedicated...

A boy recounts his annual summer trips to rural Illinois with his sister during the Great Depression to visit their larger-than-life grandmother.

Depicts the hardships and suffering endured by the Joads as they journey from Oklahoma to California during the Depression.

With love and determination befitting the "world's greatest family," twelve-year-old Deza Malone, her older brother Jimmie, and their parents endure tough times in Gary, Indiana, and later Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression.

Just days before the Christmas of 1931, a neighbor of the Wortham's, the mother of ten children, dies, and her husband loses the will to live. Julia feels her faith tested by the tragedy, yet as Christmas nears, the grieving families discover an unexpected gift of hope that will shape them all.

In Depression-era Mississippi, Millie Reynolds escapes her abusive parents by running off with a gypsy caravan, where she uncovers generations of shocking family secrets and finds the tools she needs to confront them.

In 1933, Richard Lindsay worries that his family will not have a good Christmas, until he has an idea to give gifts to all the people he loves.

Ten-year-old Beans Curry, a member of the Keepsies, the best marble playing gang in Depression-era Key West, Florida, engages in various schemes to earn money while "New Dealers" from Washington, D.C., arrive to turn run down Key West into a tourist resort.

Christmas is around the corner but not for the Van Sloten family. In the depths of the Great Depression, poor families like the Van Slotens are lucky to have a roof over their heads. Work is scarce, and there hasn't been enough of it to provide even the necessities, let alone a luxury like a holiday celebration. But when Tom, the oldest son, takes it into his head to provide a Christmas for his family, the stage is set for a story that will warm your...