Books with title Jack and Jake

Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, on November 29, 1832. She was one of four daughters of Bronson Alcott, an educator and philosopher (one who seeks an understanding of the world and man's place in it), and Abigail May Alcott. Her father was unsuited for many jobs and also unwilling to take many of them, and as a result he was unable to support his family. The Alcotts were very poor. Her father moved the family to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1834 and founded the Temple School, in which he planned to use his own teaching methods. The school failed, and the family moved to Concord, Massachusetts, in 1840.Alcott's father was a strong supporter of women's rights and an early abolitionist (opponent of slavery), and his friends were some of the most brilliant and famous men and women of the day. His friends included Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), Margaret Fuller (1810–1850), and Theodore Parker (1810–1860). Alcott and her sisters became friends with these visitors as well, and were even tutored by them at times. This combination of intellectual richness and actual poverty helped Alcott develop her sense of humor.Alcott soon realized that if she and her sisters did not find ways to bring money into the home, the family would be doomed to permanent poverty. In her early years she worked at a variety of tasks to make money to help her family, including teaching, sewing, and housework. At sixteen she wrote a book, Flower Fables (not published for six years), and she wrote a number of plays that were never produced. By 1860 her stories and poems were being published in the Atlantic Monthly. During the Civil War (1861–65; a war fought in the United States between the states in the North and the states in the South mainly over the issue of slavery), Alcott served as a nurse until her health failed. Her description of the experience in Hospital Sketches (1863) brought her work to the attention of many people.The attention seemed to die out, however, when she published her first novel, Moods, in 1865, and she was glad to accept a job in 1867 as the editor of the juvenile magazine Merry's Museum. The next year she produced the first volume of Little Women, a cheerful and attractive account of her childhood. The character Jo represented Alcott herself, and Amy, Beth, and Meg represented her sisters. The book was an instant success, and a second volume followed in 1869. The resulting sales accomplished the goal she had worked toward for twenty-five years: the Alcott family had enough money to live comfortably.

Jack and Jill: A Village Story is a children's book. It takes place in a small New England town after the Civil War. The story of two good friends named Jack and Janey, Jack and Jill tells of the aftermath of a serious sledding accident. Extract: ""Clear the lulla!" was the general cry on a bright December afternoon, when all the boys and girls of Harmony Village were out enjoying the first good snow of the season. Up and down three long coasts they went as fast as legs and sleds could carry them. One smooth path led into the meadow, and here the little folk congregated; one swept across the pond, where skaters were darting about like water-bugs; and the third, from the very top of the steep hill, ended abruptly at a rail fence on the high bank above the road.” Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) was an American novelist and poet best known as the author of the classic Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist.

Jack and Jill: A Village Story by Louisa May Alcott, is a children's book originally published in 1880. It takes place in a small New England town after the Civil War. The story of two good friends named Jack and Janey, Jack and Jill tells of the aftermath of a serious sledding accident. Jack Minot and Janey Pecq are best friends who live next door to each other. They are always seen together, so Janey gets the nickname of Jill, to mimic the old rhyme. The two do go up a hill one winter day— and then suffer a terrible accident. Seriously injured in a sledding accident, they recover from their physical injuries, while learning life lessons along with their many friends. They are helped along their journey to recovery by various activities created by their mothers. In the end they are all the better for it and have learned many valuable lessons.

"Exploding the tom cat was, as I recollect, mostly Edward’s idea; unfortunately, it was Papa’s dynamite." This a rough book, about a rough era, the roaring '20s, in a rough place, the newly created state of Arizona. Jake Smith is an orphan, raised by his Grandfather, also named Jake, the town constable of Superior, Arizona. The tale takes him from his Sophomore year of high school, through a summer ranch job and back into his junior year. During that six months Jake meets gamblers, and cattle rustlers, poets and cowhands, ranch cooks and mining magnates. “I spun around and found myself looking down the double barrels of a sawed off shotgun held in the meaty hands of my hard case. Let me tell you. When you’re looking straight at them, the barrels of a .12 gauge look about as big as a couple of field artillery pieces.” He learns how to repair fences, and fish with dynamite; gets himself a mangy old dog, and a darn smart girl; finds and loses a fortune; and earns a practically brand new watch. He also learns how to cook. Southwestern food figures a lot in the book, and some of the recipes are included. Try them, it’s good eats. “The food was a darn site better than I usually got and I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity. Dessert was dried apple pie with coffee. I had seconds on that too, and would have gone for thirds if I could have figured out how to fit it in. Manny did grab himself a third piece of pie but I don’t think his heart was in it. He just sort of picked at it for a while, though he did carry in his hand what was left.” Mostly, the stories are true, as told to me by the old folks, though some are twisted around a bit, and a few are downright stretchers. But then, that’s what writing a book is about, isn’t it; getting to tell a few whoppers? I hope you enjoy the reading as much as I did the writing.

“Jack and Jill” is a familiar nursery story throughout the English-speaking world, and is one of the most beloved of Mother Goose’s nursery rhymes. This new adaptation of the nursery rhyme brings together the five verses of this rhyme, with some adaptation of the text, to become the delightful story presented in this book. Children and adults alike will read and re-read this story with pleasure and delight, peopling memories with the unfortunate children of the nursery rhyme.Decorated with illustrations by legally-blind author, editor, and illustrator, Debbie Barry, this book is a celebration of wishes and imagination. The high-contrast, white-on-black text and illustrations, combine with the extra-large letters, make this book accessible for many visually-impaired and legally-blind readers. Visually accessible books are important, not only for adults, but for those children who, through illness, injury, or from birth experience reduced vision. This is a personal mission of the illustrator, who was blessed to grow up with normal vision, and had a love of reading from early child, but who lost most of her vision while her children were still young.

James Caldwell has just graduated from high school. An only child, his parents indulge his every whim; his graduation gift is a red Corvette convertible. Their expectations are that, after college, James will return to Grangerville, a small Illinois town, and work in the printing business which his father has dedicated his life to building, and which is to be his son’s heritage.He should be enthusiastic about his good fortune but, more than anything, James, who has never been further from home than a lake, thirty miles distant, where he and his dad sometimes go fishing, wants get out of this humdrum town. His dream is to become a foreign correspondent and travel the world.A couple of weeks after graduation, he suggests, at dinner, that they take a trip. His father’s excuse, as always, is that he “can’t leave the business.”James is furious. The next morning, without notifying his parents, he takes off, heading west, determined to “see the world.”Jack Trent’s background is quite different. Jack has never had a home. After his mother and baby sister died in an apartment fire in Kansas City, his father spends the next fifteen years moving from place to place, from job to job. Jack has never attended any one school for more than a year. His lifelong dream has been to have a home of his own.He has just begun the second semester in the community college in Grand Junction, Colorado when his father is killed in an automobile accident.Trying to decide what to do Jack, who has been completely dependent on his father, drops out of school and hitches a ride in an 18 wheeler.He has just decided that the sensible thing is to become a truck driver. Then he and James meet up at a truck stop in Cheyenne, Wyoming.James invites Jack to ride along,They decide to travel the perimeter of the United States. As they drive, they discuss their hopes and dreams, each envying the other for having lived a life the other wants so badly. With the passing of time, they give each other hope that fate will intervene and their dreams will ultimately be realized.Ten months later, after sojourns up into Canada, down into Mexico and the Florida Keys, they have reached Rockland, Maine. While there, James receives word that his father has suffered a heart attack. They rush back to Grangerville.His father recovers, but James is trapped. As a matter of fact, it appears that both boys are doomed to give up their dreams. Is James’s fate to settle down in Grangerville, working with his ailing father in the printing business? Will Jack again be forced into drifting from place to place, following in his father’s footsteps, forever seeking?