Based on the story of Katherine Mansfield . Retold by Rosalie Kerr. ... "Oh, how delightful it is to fall in love for the first time! How exciting to go to your first dance when you are a girl of eighteen! But life can also be hard and cruel, if you are young and inexperienced and travelling alone across Europe... or if you are a child from the wrong social class... or a singer without work and the rent to be paid." By the book Set in Europe and New Zealand, these nine stories by Katherine Mansfield dig deep beneath the appearances of life to show us the causes of human happiness and despair. Classics, modern ... |
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Based on the story of Isaac Asimov . Retold by Rowena Akinyemi . ... A human being is a soft, weak creature. It needs constant supplies of air, water, and food; it has to spend a third of its life asleep, and it can't work if the temperature is too hot or too cold. But a robot is made of strong metal. It uses electrical energy directly, never sleeps, and can work in any temperature. It is stronger, more efficient - and sometimes more human than human beings. Isaac Asimov was one of the greatest sciencefiction writers, and these short stories give us an unforgettable and terrifying vision of the future. Classics, ... |
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Based on the story of Charles Dickens . Retold by Clare West . ... In a gloomy, neglected house Miss Havisham sits, as she has sat year after year, in a wedding dress and veil that were once white, and are now faded and yellow with age. Her face is like a death's head, her dark eyes burn with bitterness and hate. By her side sits a proud and beautiful girl, and in front of her, trembling with fear in his thick country boots, stands young Pip. Miss Havisham stares at Pip coldly, and murmurs to the girl at her side: 'Break his heart, Estella. Break his heart!' Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. ... |
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Retold by Rosemary Border . ... "After dinner we turned the lights out and played hide and seek. In the dark, I touched a hand, a very cold hand. Now, because of the game, I had to hide in the dark with... with this cold person - not speaking, not knowing who it was. Slowly the others found us, hid with us, until we were all there - all thirteen. Thirteen? But there were only twelve people in the house! We touched each other in the dark, counting. Thirteen. Quickly, nervously, I lit a match to see..." By the book Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the ... |
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Based on the story of Jonathan Swift . Retold by Clare West . ... "Soon I felt something alive moving along my leg and up my body to my face, and when I looked down, I saw a very small human being, only fifteen centimetres tall... I was so surprised that I gave a great shout." By the book But that is only the first of many surprises which Gulliver has on his travels. He visits a land of giants and a flying island, meets ghosts from the past and horses which talk... Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading ... |
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Based on the story of Jane Austen . Retold by Clare West . ... Emma Woodhouse , beautiful, clever and rich, has no wish to marry, but she enjoys making matches for those around her. It was Emma who found the perfect husband for her governess Miss Taylor. So when her dear friend Mr Knightley tells her that she should let people choose their own husbands and wives, she will not listen. But does Emma really understand people as well as she thinks? And is she even right about her own feelings, when she says that she will never fall in love? Winner of the Extensive Reading Foundation Language Learner Literature Award ... |
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Based on the story of Robert Louis Stevenson . Retold by Rosemary Border . ... You are walking through the streets of London. It is getting dark and you want to get home quickly. You enter a narrow side-street. Everything is quiet, but as you pass the door of a large, windowless building, you hear a key turning in the lock. A man comes out and looks at you. You have never seen him before, but you realize immediately that he hates you. You are shocked to discover, also, that you hate him. Who is this man that everybody hates? And why is he coming out of the laboratory of the very respectable Dr Jekyll? Classics, modern ... |
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Why aren't the students at Mangrove High School allowed to study maths or use computers? Who are the strange Wardens who watch over them all the time? And is someone listening in on their thoughts, when they are sent to The Room? Finn and Ellie both know that something isn't right in their world. But when they start asking questions, their lives are turned upside-down - and suddenly even their families are no longer what they seemed. Finn is in great danger, but when his brother Adam offers to help, he needs to find out fast if he can really trust him... Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for ... |
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Based on the story of Anna Sewell . Retold by John Escott . ... When Black Beauty is trained to carry a rider on his back, or to pull a carriage behind him, he finds it hard at first. But he is lucky - his first home is a good one, where his owners are kind people, who would never be cruel to a horse. But in the nineteenth century many people were cruel to their horses, whipping them and beating them, and using them like machines until they dropped dead. Black Beauty soon finds this out, and as he describes his life, he has many terrible stories to tell. Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for ... |
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It is 1866, and there is trouble in the world's oceans. What is the extraordinary thing that people have seen there, travelling faster than a whale and cutting holes in the bottom of the strongest ships? Dr Aronnax joins the search for the monster, hoping for an exciting adventure. But when he meets the mysterious Captain Nemo, his adventure becomes more extraordinary than he had ever imagined, and he discovers a new underwater world, full of wonders, but of strange dangers too... Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading ... |
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Based on the story of Lewis Carroll . Retold by Jennifer Bassett . ... "I wish I could get through into looking-glass house," - Alice said. 'Let's pretend that the glass has gone soft and... Why, I do believe it has! It's turning into a kind of cloud!" By the book A moment later Alice is inside the looking-glass world. There she finds herself part of a great game of chess, travelling through forests and jumping across brooks. The chess pieces talk and argue with her, give orders and repeat poems... It is the strangest dream that anyone ever had... Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and ... |
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Based on the story of Thomas Hardy . Retold by Clare West . ... On a stormy winter night, a stranger knocks at the door of a shepherd's cottage. He is cold and hungry, and wants to get out of the rain. He is welcomed inside, but he does not give his name or his business. Who is he, and where has he come from? And he is only the first visitor to call at the cottage that night... In these three short stories, Thomas Hardy gives us pictures of the lives of shepherds and hangmen, dukes and teachers. But rich or poor, young or old, they all have the same feelings of fear, hope, love, jealousy... Classics, modern fiction, ... |
