Arcadia Public Library

"A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret. Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages. When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel...

A social worker who was abandoned by her mother sets out to find the truth about her newest charge with the reluctant assistance of a handsome attorney.

Jane Addams (1860-1935) was one of the leading figures of the Progressive era. This "pragmatic visionary," as Knight calls her, is best known as the creator of Hull House, a model settlement house offering training, shelter, and culture for Chicago's poor. Addams also involved herself in a long list of Progressive campaigns. Her rhetorical skills as both speaker and writer made her internationally recognized as a supporter of civil rights, woman suffrage,...

Maddy is a social worker trying to balance her career and three children. Years ago, she fell in love with Ben, a public defender, drawn to his fiery passion, but now he's lashing out at her during his periodic verbal furies. She vacillates between tiptoeing around him and asserting herself for the sake of their kids, until the rainy day when they're together in the car and Ben's volatile temper gets the best of him, leaving Maddy in the hospital...

Her career in ruins after muttering profanity into an open mike, Meghan Fitzmaurice, host of the country's most popular morning talk show, discovers that her disgrace has had a profound impact on the lives of those around her.

Set in a terrifyingly familiar near-future, with massive floods leading to rampant homelessness and devastation, a government-sanctioned regime called The Boots seizes on the opportunity to round up communities of color, the disabled, and the LGBTQ+ into labor camps. In the shadows, a new hero emerges. After he loses his livelihood as a drag queen and the love of his life, Kay joins the resistance alongside Bahadur, a transmasculine refugee, and Firuzeh,...

"When social worker Jax receives nine missed calls from her older sister, Lexie, she assumes that it's just another one of her sister's episodes. Manic and increasingly out of touch with reality, Lexie has pushed Jax away for over a year. But the next day, Lexie is dead: drowned in the pool at their grandmother's estate. When Jax arrives at the house to go through her sister's things, she learns that Lexie was researching the history of their family...

A closer walk is the first film to depict humankind's confrontation with the global AIDS epidemic. The film's director and producer, Robert Bilheimer, is an Academy Award nominee for his film Cry of reason, a profile of the South African anti-apartheid leader Beyers Naude. A closer walk was conceived with the late Jonathan Mann, architect of the World Health Organization's response to global AIDS. For the film, more than 50 women, men, and young people...

"Most people know Jane Addams (1860-1935) as the force behind Hull House, one of the first settlement houses in the United States. She was also an ardent suffragist and civil rights activist, co-founding the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union. But it was her work as a pacifist that put her in the international spotlight. Although many people labeled her "unpatriotic" for her pacifist activities,...

A biography of the Nobel Prize winning woman who founded Hull House, one of the first settlement houses in the United States, and who championed public health, Women's Suffrage, the international peace movement, and helped found the NAACP. The first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, Jane Addams is remembered for her work for justice and equality at Hull House and for her contributions to the Progressive movement. The story of Jane Addams provides...