Into the Wild
The Call of the Wild

Raising Ourselves

Velma Wallis shares the love, loss, and struggle that mark her coming of age in a two-room cabin at Fort Yukon, Alaska, where she is born in 1960, the sixth of thirteen children. Family life is defined by the business of survival: Haul water from the Yukon. Kill a moose. Chop firewood. Feed the sled dogs staked around the cabin. Run the trap line. Catch salmon. It is a time of innocence and laughter, too, as the children escape into a world of play under the midnight sun. The once-migratory family has settled at the confluence of two she is born in 1960, the sixth of thirteen children. Family life is defined by the business of survival: Haul water from the Yukon. Kill a moose. Chop firewood. Feed the sled dogs staked around the cabin. Run the trap line. Catch salmon. It is a time of innocence and laughter, too, as the children escape into a world of play under the midnight sun.

More Adult, Non-Juvenile Books

  • In The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride explores the intertwined lives of the residents of Chicken Hill, a neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans coexist amid struggles and secrets. As the community rallies to protect a deaf boy from institutionalization, the narrative reveals the deep bonds of love and resilience that sustain them, even in the face of adversity and the oppressive forces of society.
  • The House on Mango Street is a poignant coming-of-age novel that follows Esperanza Cordero as she navigates her childhood in Chicago, exploring her identity and aspirations. Through a series of beautifully crafted vignettes, Sandra Cisneros captures the essence of self-discovery and the importance of telling one's story, making it a cherished classic in American literature.
  • The Hunter unfolds in a small Irish village where former Chicago PD officer Cal Hooper seeks peace but finds himself entangled in a conflict involving a reappearing father and a gold-seeking scheme. As Cal and his partner Lena strive to protect a troubled teenager from the looming threat, the lines between safeguarding and revenge blur, challenging their relationships and their morals.
  • Matt Daly’s lineage links back to Puritans from the early colonial period who helped set the course toward many of the destructive and shameful practices that Anglo-American culture has enacted on people and ecosystems around the world. The Invisible World strives to address this history, not to redress its wrongs, but at least to face them in the hope of making sense of how we might live beyond their influence. Exploring the writings of his ancestor, Matt saw an articulation of wildness as the habitat for evil. The American continent was cast as a place to be purged of its darkness. [...]