Isobel : A Romance of the Northern Trail

Isobel : A Romance of the Northern Trail

James Oliver Curwood

Animals / Fiction / Classics

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.About the AuthorJames Oliver Curwood lived most of his life in Owosso, Michigan, where he was born on June 12, 1878. His first novel was "The Courage of Captain Plum" (1908) and he published one or two novels each year thereafter, until his death on August 13, 1927. Owosso residents honor his name to this day, and Curwood Castle (built in 1922) is the town's main tourist attraction. During the 1920s Curwood became one of America's best selling and most highly paid authors. This was the decade of his lasting classics "The Valley of Silent Men" (1920) and "The Flaming Forest" (1921). He and his wife Ethel were outdoors fanatics and active conservationists.
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The Lucky Snow Leopard

The Lucky Snow Leopard

Amelia Cobb

Animals / Childrens / Chapter Books

When Great-Uncle Horace brings back lost and homeless animals from his travels around the globe, it falls to Zoe, and her mum the zoo vet, to settle them into their new home. She's good at this, because she can understand what they say and talk to them, too. But that's a secret! In the sixth book in the series, zoe's very excited about some festive new arrivals. But the little snow leopard doesn't want to be a big brother. Can Zoe show him how lucky he is?
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The Super Sloth

The Super Sloth

Amelia Cobb

Animals / Childrens / Chapter Books

Zoe loves living at her uncle's rescue zoo because there's always something exciting going on. And Zoe also has an amazing secret... She can actually TALK to the animals! Zoe is super-excited to welcome a new animal to the zoo - a sleepy sloth called Sabina. But the little sloth is behaving very strangely ... and it's up to Zoe to find out what's going on!
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Helpless

Helpless

Barbara Gowdy

Fiction / Animals / Cultural

From the internationally acclaimed author of The White Bone and The Romantic, a haunting and suspenseful novel of abduction and obsessive love Nine-year-old Rachel Fox has the face of an angel, a heart-stopping luminosity that strikes all who meet her. Her single mother, Celia, working at a video store by day and a piano bar by night, is not always around to shield her daughter from the attention—both benign and sinister—that her beauty draws. Attention from model agencies, for example, or from Ron, a small-appliance repairman who, having seen Rachel once, is driven to see her again and again.When a summer blackout plunges the city into darkness and confusion, Rachel is taken from her home. A full-scale search begins, but days pass with no solid clues, only a phone call Celia receives from a woman whose voice she has heard before but cannot place. And as Celia fights her terror and Rachel starts to trust in her abductor's kindness, the only other person who knows where she is wavers between loyalty to the captor and saving the child. Will Rachel be found before her abductor's urge to protect and cherish turns to something altogether less innocent?Tapping into the fear that lies just below the surface of contemporary city life, Barbara Gowdy draws on her trademark empathy and precision to create a portrait of love at its most consuming and ambiguous and to uncover the volatile point at which desire gives way to the unthinkable.
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Alfred Ollivant's Bob, Son of Battle

Alfred Ollivant's Bob, Son of Battle

Alfred Ollivant

Classics / Animals / Childrens

Alfred Ollivant's Bob, Son of Battle is a classic tale from the borderlands between Scotland and England that has delighted generations of boys and girls. This rousing and moving tale of dogs and fathers and sons focuses on the rivalry between two sheepdogs and their masters and a boy who is caught in the middle. We see the legendary local competitions to determine the next champion sheepdog; we investigate the mystery of the dog who has gone rogue and is killing local sheep by night; we experience the life of the villages and enter a vividly evoked, sparsely populated landscape of moors, lakes, and streams. Above all, however, this is a moving human story about a difficult, embittered man, his troubled relationship with his son, and the love of his dog. As a girl, Lydia Davis, one of America's finest contemporary writers and translators, loved Bob, Son of Battle. In this new version, she has rendered the now obscure dialects in which the characters...
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21st-Century Yokel

21st-Century Yokel

Tom Cox

Nonfiction / Animals / Cats

21st-Century Yokel explores the way we can be tied inescapably to landscape, whether we like it or not, often through our family and our past. It's not quite a nature book, not quite a humour book, not quite a family memoir, not quite folklore, not quite social history, not quite a collection of essays, but a bit of all six.It contains owls, badgers, ponies, beavers, otters, bats, bees, scarecrows, dogs, ghosts, Tom's loud and excitable dad and, yes, even a few cats. It's full of Devon's local folklore – the ancient kind, and the everyday kind – and provincial places and small things. But what emerges from this focus on the small are themes that are broader and bigger and more definitive.The book's language is colloquial and easy and its eleven chapters are discursive and wide-ranging, rambling even. The feel of the book has a lot in common with the country walks Tom Cox was on when he composed much of it: it's bewitched by fresh air, intrepid...
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A Friend in Need

A Friend in Need

Olivia Tuffin

Childrens / Middle Grade / Animals / Horses

Georgia and her Palomino, Lily, have come a long way together but now, in their final adventure together, they face what might just be their biggest challenge yet. Georgia and Lily have been selected for dressage training camp at Rosefolly Equestrian Centre, the best equestrian centre in the country, where they will compete for a place on the British Pony Squad. Georgia can't wait to show off Lily's abilities at Rosefolly, and she's so happy to be training alongside friendly Jodie and her beautiful but skittish pony, Jackson. But it looks like stuck-up Serena wants to make an enemy of both of them. She's desperate to win a place on the squad, and she won't let anyone stand in her way...
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The Mix-Up

The Mix-Up

Adrian Beck

Animals / Speculative Fiction / Childrens

Charles was the best player in the boys' football team. Charlotte was the best player in the girls' side. But this season they're both playing in the same mixed team. Is there room for two Champion Charlies on one side? And can they get past their rivalry to help form the greatest football team Jindaberg Primary has ever seen?With prankster teammates, a karaoke coach, dancing dads and an arch rival with an axe to grind, the Champion Charlies soon learn that achieving success is not going to be easy . . . but it sure will be fun!
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Murphy, Gold Rush Dog

Murphy, Gold Rush Dog

Alison Hart

Animals / Horses / Young Adult

All Murphy wants is a home and a loving family. After escaping from his brutal and merciless owner, he is taken in by a young girl named Sally. She and her mother have just arrived in Nome, Alaska, intent on joining the other gold seekers and making a new life there, free from their wealthy but oppressive family in Seattle.Yet even with Murphy at their side, Sally and Mama find living in the mining town harsh and forbidding. When it seems they may have to give up and return to Seattle, Sally and Murphy decide to strike out on their own, hoping to find gold and make a permanent home. But dangers await them - not only blizzards and grizzly bears, but also Murphy's original owner, who will stop at nothing to get what he wants, whether it is an ill-gotten fortune or a valuable dog.
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The Pesky Polar Bear

The Pesky Polar Bear

Amelia Cobb

Animals / Childrens / Chapter Books

When Great-Uncle Horace brings back lost and homeless animals from his travels around the globe, it falls to Zoe, and her mum the zoo vet, to settle them into their new home. She's good at this, because she can understand what they say and talk to them, too. But that's a secret! In the seventh book in the series, Zoe's planning a surprise party for her mum's birthday. But Snowy the Polar Bear is being just a little too bossy...
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