Books published by publisher Harcourt and Brace

The Human Comedy, Saroyan's first novel, is the story of an American family in wartime, and in particular of Homer Macauley, the fastest messenger in San Joaquin valley. With all the qualities of warmth, cheer, and humanity which have endeared Saroyan to his reading public, The Human Comedy abounds in unforgettable scenes. Homer running the Two-Twenty hurdles; little Ulysses imprisoned in a bear trap in Covington's store; old-time telegraph operator Willie Grogan, with a bottle in the desk drawer to fuzz the sharp reality of the everflowing messages of love and hope and pain and death; Spangler, with a love for the whole world and every living thing; Homer's older brother Marcus singing, as the troop train in which he sits hurtles away from home. Saroyan has done many things, but he has here done something which even his oldest friends scarcely dared to predict -- a wartime novel of the home front which succeeds in capturing, and which nowhere oversteps, the modesty of ordinary human beings. It is a very simple novel. It is a very great achievement. With jacket and many drawings by Don Freeman.

Born on The Night When Shadows Linger, Holly Go Lolly played with shadows all her life. And that was a lucky thing for her, because when the Ooboo came to eat her up, she used her mysterious shadows to work a trick on him. Newbery Award–winner Nancy Willard weaves a magic spell with the extraordinary story of Holly Go Lolly and the Ooboo, which Caldecott Award–winning illustrator David Diaz illuminates with dazzling art.

Originally published in 1923, the second volume of Carl Sandburg's beloved Rootabaga Stories includes tales about "Big People Now" and "Little People Long Ago." The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet wrote these American fairy tales for his children while they were growing up in the American Midwest. This paperback edition matches the first volume in size and format and contains the color and b&w illustrations of Maud and Miska Petersham.