Wednesday, February 26, 2014

A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens

A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visitations of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Yet to Come.
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The Junior Classics By William Patten (Pt 2)

The purpose of The Junior Classics is to provide, in ten volumes containing about five thousand pages, a classified collection of tales, stories, and poems, both ancient and modern, suitable for boys and girls of from six to sixteen years of age. (summary from book introduction)
This collection consists of Volume 1 of The Junior Classics, and it contains many well known stories in their original forms. Among stories from other authors, you’ll find Hans Christian Anderson, Aesop, and the Grimm brothers.

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The Junior Classics By William Patten (Pt 1)

The purpose of The Junior Classics is to provide, in ten volumes containing about five thousand pages, a classified collection of tales, stories, and poems, both ancient and modern, suitable for boys and girls of from six to sixteen years of age. (summary from book introduction)
This collection consists of Volume 1 of The Junior Classics, and it contains many well known stories in their original forms. Among stories from other authors, you’ll find Hans Christian Anderson, Aesop, and the Grimm brothers.

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Peter Pan By J. M. Barrie

In both the play and the novel, Peter often visits the “real world” of London to listen in on bedtime stories told by Mary Darling to her children. One night, Peter is spotted, and while trying to escape, he loses his shadow. On returning to claim his shadow, he wakes Mary’s daughter, Wendy Darling. When Wendy succeeds in re-attaching his shadow to him, Peter takes a fancy to her and invites her to Neverland to be a mother to his gang of Lost Boys, the children who are lost in Kensington Gardens. Wendy agrees, and her brothers John and Michael go along. The dangerous and magical flight to Neverland is followed by many adventures. The children are blown out of air by a cannon and Wendy is nearly killed. Peter and the Lost Boys build a little house for Wendy to live in while she recuperates. Soon John and Michael adopt the ways of the Lost Boys, while Wendy plays house in mothering them, all the while invoking the jealousy of Tinker Bell, Tiger Lily, and the mermaids. Peter is often oblivious, concentrating on real and make-believe adventures and on taunting the pirate Captain Hook. Later follows adventures at Mermaids’ Lagoon, the near deaths of Tinker Bell and Peter; a violent pirate/Indian massacre, and a climactic confrontation with Peter’s nemesis, the pirate Captain Hook of the pirate ship the Jolly Roger.
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The Wonderful Wizard of Oz By L. Frank Baum

The story chronicles the adventures of a girl named Dorothy Gale in the Land of Oz. As Baum says in the introduction "It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out." And it succeeds wonderfully. It is one of the best-known stories in American popular culture and has been widely translated. This is the first of thirteen more Oz books.
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Little Women By Louisa May Alcott (Pt 3)

Little Women is the classic story of the March family, which consists of Mr. and Mrs. March and their four girls–Practical, yet fashion conscious, Meg, who longs for the nice things they used to have. Rambunctious, book worm, Jo, who wants to become a writer and wishes she were born a boy. Shy and quiet, homeloving, Beth, who loves to play the piano and play with her kitties. Finally, the youngest, artistic, Amy, who longs for an aristocratic nose!
The story takes place during the American Civil War, and begins with Mr. March away from home as a chaplain to the Union army, while his wife and daughters remain at home to work and wait for his safe return. This book follows their joys and sorrows and scrapes along the path to the girl’s becoming grown up “little women”.
Many of the scrapes they get into include Laurie–their harum scarum next door neighbor, who becomes their adopted brother. The two families, the March’s and the Laurence’s strike up a lasting friendship, despite their differences in material possessions.
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Little Women By Louisa May Alcott (Pt 2)

Little Women is the classic story of the March family, which consists of Mr. and Mrs. March and their four girls–Practical, yet fashion conscious, Meg, who longs for the nice things they used to have. Rambunctious, book worm, Jo, who wants to become a writer and wishes she were born a boy. Shy and quiet, homeloving, Beth, who loves to play the piano and play with her kitties. Finally, the youngest, artistic, Amy, who longs for an aristocratic nose!
The story takes place during the American Civil War, and begins with Mr. March away from home as a chaplain to the Union army, while his wife and daughters remain at home to work and wait for his safe return. This book follows their joys and sorrows and scrapes along the path to the girl’s becoming grown up “little women”.
Many of the scrapes they get into include Laurie–their harum scarum next door neighbor, who becomes their adopted brother. The two families, the March’s and the Laurence’s strike up a lasting friendship, despite their differences in material possessions.

AUDIO

Little Women By Louisa May Alcott (Pt 1)

Little Women is the classic story of the March family, which consists of Mr. and Mrs. March and their four girls–Practical, yet fashion conscious, Meg, who longs for the nice things they used to have. Rambunctious, book worm, Jo, who wants to become a writer and wishes she were born a boy. Shy and quiet, homeloving, Beth, who loves to play the piano and play with her kitties. Finally, the youngest, artistic, Amy, who longs for an aristocratic nose!
The story takes place during the American Civil War, and begins with Mr. March away from home as a chaplain to the Union army, while his wife and daughters remain at home to work and wait for his safe return. This book follows their joys and sorrows and scrapes along the path to the girl’s becoming grown up “little women”.
Many of the scrapes they get into include Laurie–their harum scarum next door neighbor, who becomes their adopted brother. The two families, the March’s and the Laurence’s strike up a lasting friendship, despite their differences in material possessions.
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The Secret Garden By: Frances Hodgson Burnett

When Mary Lennox, who has been brought up in India in a spoiled manner, is orphaned she has to move to Yorkshire, England, to live with her uncle in Misselthwaite Manor. Here she is treated much differently than she was in India - she is able to make friends with children her own age, one of these being her sickly cousin, Colin Craven.
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Pollyanna By Eleanor H. Porter

In a small town far out West, 11 year old Pollyanna loses her mother then her dad to disease. This book describes how the orphan is sent to be raised by her aunt who loves far away in the East of the country. Unfortunately her aunt does not want her but accepts her very reluctantly only out of 'duty' and sticks her into a tiny hot attic room so she will be 'out of the way'. What Aunt Polly does not know is that Pollyanna is bringing the game of being 'glad' that her father taught her and that her irrepressible happy attitude will transform not only that dull and miserable house, but an entire village before she is through. 
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Treasure Island By Robert Louis Stevenson

A mysterious map, pirates, and pieces of eight! When young Jim Hawkins finds a map to pirates’ gold he starts on an adventure that takes him from his English village to a desert island with the murderous Black Dog, half-mad Ben Gunn, and (of course) Long John Silver. Arr Jim lad! R.L. Stevenson (1850-1894) was born in Scotland and travelled extensively in California and the south Pacific.

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Anne of Green Gables By Lucy Maud Montgomery (Pt 2)

Lucy Maud Montgomery’s classic children’s novel, Anne of Green Gables tells the story of a red headed orphan girl with a personality you can’t help but love. Despite her “tragical” past, Anne’s optimism and imagination have helped her to always see the best in things. Anne’s life changes considerably when she is accidentally adopted by the Cuthberts, a brother and sister who thought they were getting a boy to help out on the farm. The Cuthberts decide Anne will have to be sent back to the orphange but before they know it, she has begun to work her way into their hearts.
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Anne of Green Gables By Lucy Maud Montgomery (Pt 1)

Lucy Maud Montgomery’s classic children’s novel, Anne of Green Gables tells the story of a red headed orphan girl with a personality you can’t help but love. Despite her “tragical” past, Anne’s optimism and imagination have helped her to always see the best in things. Anne’s life changes considerably when she is accidentally adopted by the Cuthberts, a brother and sister who thought they were getting a boy to help out on the farm. The Cuthberts decide Anne will have to be sent back to the orphange but before they know it, she has begun to work her way into their hearts.
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Aesop’s Fables By Aesop

Dating back to the 6th century BC, Aesop’s Fables tell universal truths through the use of simple allegories that are easily understood. Though almost nothing is known of Aesop himself, and some scholars question whether he existed at all, these stories stand as timeless classics known in almost every culture in the world. This is volume 1 of 12.
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer By Mark Twain (Pt 2)

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (published 1876) is a very well-known and popular story concerning American youth. Mark Twain’s lively tale of the scrapes and adventures of boyhood is set in St. Petersburg, Missouri, where Tom Sawyer and his friend Huckleberry Finn have the kinds of adventures many boys can imagine: racing bugs during class, impressing girls, especially Becky Thatcher, with fights and stunts in the schoolyard, getting lost in a cave, and playing pirates on the Mississippi River.

One of the most famous incidents in the book describes how Tom persuades his friends to do a boring, hateful chore for him: whitewashing (i.e., painting) a fence.
This was the first novel to be written on a typewriter.
AUDIO

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer By Mark Twain (Pt 1)

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (published 1876) is a very well-known and popular story concerning American youth. Mark Twain’s lively tale of the scrapes and adventures of boyhood is set in St. Petersburg, Missouri, where Tom Sawyer and his friend Huckleberry Finn have the kinds of adventures many boys can imagine: racing bugs during class, impressing girls, especially Becky Thatcher, with fights and stunts in the schoolyard, getting lost in a cave, and playing pirates on the Mississippi River.

One of the most famous incidents in the book describes how Tom persuades his friends to do a boring, hateful chore for him: whitewashing (i.e., painting) a fence.
This was the first novel to be written on a typewriter.

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The Swiss Family Robinson By: Johann David Wyss (Pt 2)

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The Swiss Family Robinson By: Johann David Wyss (Pt 1)

The Swiss Family Robinson has delighted generations of readers with its exciting tale of a family which, though shipwrecked, displays “the right stuff” and builds a charming colony that later, they do not want to leave. Cut off from the comforts and companionship of other humans, they use a familiarity with natural history and biology to find the resources and build the tools to construct a canoe, weave cloth, irrigate a garden, and turn an immense hollow tree into a lofty house with a spiral staircase. They domesticate buffaloes, wild asses, and monkeys. They establish farms and plantations. And finally, they have a terrifying encounter with natives from a nearby island. Johann David Wyss, the author, did not live to complete his tale. Storytellers over the years have injected so many episodes into the various versions that probably none closely match the original. (Indeed, the Baroness de Montholieu expanded the book from two volumes into five when she translated it into French.) This effort was re-translated into English in 1849 by W.H.G. Kingston, abridging the edition severely. It follows the British sensibilities of the period in terms of sentence structure and emphasis. AUDIO