Ocean State Libraries

In 1942, Robert and his cousin Elliot uncover long-hidden family secrets while staying in their grandparents' Rhode Island town, where they also become involved with a German artist who is suspected of being a spy.

Years afterwards, Ruben Hart tells the story of how, in 1929 Newport, Rhode Island, his family and his best friend's family were caught up in the violent competition among groups trying to control the local rum-smuggling trade.

"In Providence, R.I., in 1848, Edgar Allan Poe reluctantly investigates the problems of eleven-year-old Edmund, whose family has mysteriously disappeared and whose story suggests a new Poe tale with a ghastly final twist." --

Outside Providence is a hilarious yet melancholy novel of a young man's coming of age in the 1970s. When Timothy Dunphy, native of working-class Pawtucket, Rhode Island, is packed off to a fancy prep school, he finds that the privileged elite is hardly immune to life's screwups. Dunphy must reconcile his pedigreed schoolmates with his mongrel friends back home—including Drugs Delaney, whose diet consists mainly of vitamin Qs (Quaaludes),...

"When Mattie, seventeen, seeks out the reclusive Miyu, daughter of a famed escapologist, to indulge her secret desire to learn the craft, it leads to a friendship with classmate Will, who bears a huge secret of his own." --

Seventeen-year-old Quigley and her best friend Anne have big plans to prepare for prom, including working to earn money for dresses, but both girls seem to have chosen their prospective dates badly as Anne's family crisis affects them all.

"Story about various forms of love including love for family, friends, pets, and places!"

The Sirens of Titan (1959), Vonnegut's second novel, was on the Hugo final ballot along with Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers and lost in what Harlan Ellison called a monumental injustice. Malachi Constant is a feckless but ultimately good-hearted millionaire who, in this incondensable interplanetary Candide (lacking perhaps Voltaire's utter bitterness), searches the solar system for the ultimate meaning of existence.

Constant

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When his dad goes missing in a fishing-boat accident, fourteen-year-old Jake refuses to think he may have lost his father forever. But suddenly, nothing seems certain in Jake's future, and now his family's diner may be repossessed by loan sharks. In Narragansett Bay, scrabbling out a living as a quahogger isn't easy, but with the help of some local clammers, Jake is determined to work hard and earn enough money to ensure his family's security and...

From clammers to the Roger Williams Park Zoo, this delightful board book tours little ones around the Ocean State. Children will recognize their favorite Rhode Island attractions and landmarks, including Green Animals Topiary Garden, Newport Cliff Walk, sailing on Narragansett Bay, Block Island ferry, sandy beaches, Slater Mill, Blackstone River Bikeway, Pawtucket Red Sox, lighthouses, and more.