La Porte County Public Library System

Fragments of the Ark follows the exploits of runaway slave Peter Mango, his family, and a band of fellow escaped slaves as they commandeer a Confederate gunboat out of Charleston harbor and deliver it to the Union navy. Mango is made captain of this liberated vessel and commands its crew through the duration of the war. He also travels to Washington to meet President Lincoln, adding his voice to others trying to persuade the president to allow black...

Low country storyteller Delores B. Nevils and acclaimed artist Jonathan Green collaborate to share the story of Amadeus, a loud and proud leghorn rooster who comes to live with a widow lady in the Corners community of St. Helena Island on the South Carolina coast. The widow lady's dogs-Kane and Able-and cats-Mae Liza, Scooter, and Pumpkin-are unhappy with the arrival of this new resident in their yard. Amadeus makes himself at home and becomes the...

The Shark's Tooth is a poetic tale of imagination and conservation in which a young girl visiting her grandparents' beach house finds friendship with the ocean's creatures. Sharks' teeth are given to her by her new aquatic friends as gifts, symbolic of her connections to nature and the sea. As the little girl grows up and moves away to the city, she loses her kinship to the natural world. When she returns to the beach house as an adult, she is convinced...

When Art and his friends-Robbie, Jason, and Amy-are having a sleepover, they decide to use Art's telescope for some stargazing. They are shocked to see a purple spaceship hurtling toward Earth. While his parents think his imagination is getting the best of him, Art thinks Earth is at risk of an alien invasion. What should he do? Should Art and his fellow science detectives alert the authorities, or should they take matters into their own hands? When...

Three Wild Pigs: A Carolina Folktale, written and illustrated by Lisa Anne Cullen, is an adaptation of James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps's The Story of the Three Little Pigs. Set on Bird Island along the Carolina Coast, this creative retelling of the timeless tale features three generations of a pig family-Lulu, her father, and her grandfather. On the island Lulu is known for being wise in the ways of the world. Pop is wise in the ways of the waters....

Making peace with her spiteful classmate, Clara, seems impossible to Jane. Despite encouragement from Mother Baptista, the mother superior at their convent school, Jane and Clara dig in their heels. As the girls brood they hear the cannons of the Civil War explode outside their school as General Sherman and the Union army attack the city of Columbia, South Carolina, in February 1865. Mother Baptista asks Sherman for protection for her nuns and students,...

Founded in 2013 by Steven Lynn, dean of the South Carolina Honors College, this annual writing contest was designed to engage the state's future leaders and thinkers. Each year the Honors College invited South Carolina high school juniors and seniors to respond to the question "How can we make South Carolina better?" in 750 words or fewer, in the genre of their choice. The finalists, selected by a panel of preliminary judges, were invited to the University...