San Antonio College Library

Thirteen-year-old Ratchet spends a summer in Maine with her eccentric great-aunts Tilly and Penpen, hearing strange stories from the past and encountering a variety of unusual and colorful characters.

Although ten-year-old Miguel is at first embarrassed by his colorful great aunt, Tia Lola, when she comes to Vermont from the Dominican Republic to stay with his mother, his sister, and him after his parents' divorce, he learns to love her.

"Sarah's aunt Edna paints portraits of chairs. Not people in chairs, just chairs. The old house is filled with the paintings, and the chairs themselves surround her work-a silent yet vigilant audience. At the funeral of Grandma Hutton-whom Edna has cared for through an agonizingly long and vague illness-Sarah begins helping her aunt clean up the last of a life. This includes honoring Grandma's surprising wish to have her ashes scattered in Scotland....

A guide for aunts, godmothers, and all kid-friendly women, filled with personal anecdotes, fun facts, and helpful advice, providing a weath of essential information on child development, health, and well-being.

An orphaned girl comes to live with her wealthy, embittered aunt in an English village. She soon charms everyone but her aunt, who is not won over until both are confronted with tragedy.

After the death of the beloved aunt who has raised her, twelve-year-old Summer and her uncle Ob leave their West Virginia trailer in search of the strength to go on living.

Tomás searches for maturity and knowledge of his dead father, with the aid of his great-aunt tía Zulema's magical eyeglasses and deck of playing cards.

Winner of the Pen/Hemingway Award A modern classic, "Housekeeping" is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, the eccentric and remote sister of their dead mother. The family house is in the small town of Fingerbone on a glacial lake in the Far West, the same lake where their grandfather died in...

"The Meredith Mountain fire starts on Labor Day weekend and rages for days - an awesome sight, leaving a trail of havoc and destruction in its wake. Alice Adams edits the Clark's Fort Guardian newspaper, ably assisted by her nephew, Stuart Campbell, and the two cover the blaze for the paper, wowing the local community with their stunning photographs and features. When the fire is finally contained and the mop-up crew discover a burned male body under...

After her mother's death, Julie goes to live with Aunt Cordelia, a school teacher, where she experiences many emotions and changes as she grows from seven to eighteen.