Colorado Parks & Wildlife Research Library

In a twist on the classic tale of "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly," a ravenous old lady swallows a bell, some bows, gifts, a sack, a sleigh, and finally some reindeer.

"Written with love, told with joy. Very easy to enjoy."--Fredrik Backman, author of A Man Called Ove For fans of The Little Paris Bookshop and The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared comes a heartwarming debut about 96-year-old Doris, who writes down the memories of her eventful life as she pages through her decades-old address book. But the most profound moment of her life is still to come . . . Meet Doris, a 96-year-old woman...

Miss Julia's own home is not immune to shock waves--the arrival of Latisha, housekeeper Lillian's five-year-old pistol of a great-granddaughter, sets off sparks in Miss Julia's household. But what could shake them all up even more is if anyone finds out the most troubling gossip of all--more tall tales about Miss Julia's late husband. Can Miss Julia turn the town's attention away from herself before she becomes the center of scandal? Can her cool-as-a-cucumber...

You won't believe why this old lady swallowed a chick, some straw, an egg, some candy, a basket, and a bow in this variation on the traditional cumulative rhyme with an spring theme.

Step into the charming world of "Cranford" by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. This delightful novel invites you to a quaint English village, where the lives of its eccentric and endearing inhabitants are interwoven in a tapestry of humor, heartwarming moments, and social observations. Set in the early 19th century, the narrative unfolds through the eyes of Mary Smith, an outsider welcomed into the close-knit community. As she navigates the idiosyncrasies...

At eighty-four, Leota Reinhardt is alone, all of her efforts to reconcile with her adult children hadn't worked in the past, until she meets her estranged grandaughter, Annie, and confides to her the silent sacrifice she had made as a young mother of two, while her husband was gone during World War II.

Still Life with Bread Crumbs begins with an imagined gunshot and ends with a new tin roof. Between the two is a wry and knowing portrait of Rebecca Winter, a photographer whose work made her an unlikely heroine for many women. Her career is now descendent, her bank balance shaky, and she has fled the city for the middle of nowhere. There she discovers, in a tree stand with a roofer named Jim Bates, that what she sees through a camera lens is not all...

"From New York Times and internationally bestselling author Isabel Allende, an exquisitely crafted love story and multigenerational epic that sweeps from San Francisco in the present-day to Poland and the United States during the Second World War. In 1939, as Poland falls under the shadow of the Nazis, young Alma Belasco's parents send her away to live in safety with an aunt and uncle in their opulent mansion in San Francisco. There, as the rest...

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!"

A science fiction story told by two unnamed lovers who meet in a dingy backstreet room. Set in a multi-layered story of the death of a woman's sister and husband in the 1940's, with a novel-within-a novel as a background.