The true meaning of Christmas emerges in Bess Streeter Aldrich’s two enchanting stories about reunited families, good fellowship, and restored faith. The head may tell the heart all sorts of things, but at Christmastime the heart is stronger, so take a journey back through Christmases when something quite ordinary turns out to be miraculous. 

Throughout The Enjoy Agenda Bailey asks, “Where am I and how did I get here?” a question less about geography than the difficulties and gifts of becoming a husband and ultimately a partner changed and improved by a very smart woman and challenged and delighted by a gradual but seismic culture shift.

This Young Readers’ biography of former U.S. Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser, celebrates the power of stories and of finding oneself through words.

Ted Kooser describes with exquisite detail and humor the place he calls home in the rolling hills of southeastern Nebraska—an area known as the Bohemian Alps.

South of Somewhere begins and ends in American writer Robert Camuto’s maternal ancestral town of Vico Equense, Italy—a tiny paradise south of Naples on the Sorrento Peninsula. It was here in 1968, at ten years old, that the author first tasted Italian life, spending his own summer of love surrounded by relatives at the family’s seaside pizzeria and restaurant. 

Cather provides a heartwarming short story of redemption and love at Christmas, a timely reminder that kindness is in everyone, just waiting to be uncovered.

At the sound of the bell on the last day of kindergarten, B.J. Hollars and his six-year-old son, Henry, hop in the car to strike out on a 2,500-mile road trip retracing the Oregon Trail. Their mission: to rediscover America, and Americans, along the way. Go West, Young Man recounts the author’s effort to teach his son the difficult realities of our nation’s founding while also reaffirming his faith in America today.

A respected author and scholar, Paul A. Johnsgard has spent a lifetime observing the natural delights of Nebraska’s woodlands, grasslands, and wetlands. Seasons of the Tallgrass Prairie collects his musings on Nebraska’s natural history and the issues of conservation facing our future.

In Sea Otters: A History Richard Ravalli synthesizes anew the sea otter’s complex history of interaction with humans by drawing on new histories of the species that consider international and global factors beyond the fur trade, including sea mammal conservation, Cold War nuclear testing, and environmental tourism. 

In The Bear Doesn’t Know, Paul Schullery—honored naturalist, storyteller, and former Yellowstone ranger—has given us a bear-lover’s book of wonders. It is rich in the joy, beauty, inspiration, and pure fun to be had during a life well lived in bear country.