We strive for authenticity, but expediency often demands we suppress our true feelings.Dawn Downey struggles to find her genuine self, as she navigates her white surroundings. She wages an internal war, her intuition recognizing bigotry and her intellect wanting—needing—to deny it. At the end of any given day, she is angry. She is weary. She despairs.“You get to hopeless by sinking,” she tells us.“I sank through dreamlike images of shackles, chains, branding irons, ...

Contained in this volume are two classics from Mark Twain, who is often referred to as the father of American literature.Twain first introduced Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in his 1876 book, "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," which relates the story of Tom and Huck's boyhood, their days ditching school, swimming in the Mississippi River, and, eventually, their involvement in a murder plot.The first book eventually grew to be so popular that it prompted Twain to create a seq...

Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is among Twain's most popular books; a comedic novel that follows Hank Morgan, a practical and inventive 19th-century engineer, who is mysteriously transported back to medieval England during King Arthur's reign.After using his knowledge of a solar eclipse to avoid execution, Hank becomes a powerful figure at court, nicknamed "The Boss." He attempts to modernize the kingdom with technology, education, and industry, b...

"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is often cited by critics as the Great American Novel. Mark Twain's follow-up to his enormously successful "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," Twain this time gives voice to Tom Sawyer's ne'er-do-well friend and companion, the wild and reckless young river-rat, Huckleberry "Huck" Finn.As the story opens, Huck has come into some money (splitting the treasure he and Tom Sawyer found at the end of the previous book) and has been taken in by Tom's Aunt ...

"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" is a masterpiece of American literature and was Mark Twain's best-selling novel. Though not a commercial success at first, it eventually became enormously popular and prompted Twain to write a sequel, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." Both books are now considered to be among the finest American books ever written.The story chronicles the life of its eponymous hero, an orphan boy living with his strict Aunt Polly in the town of St. Petersburg, Mis...