TITLES

Word Count 750

The Little Match Girl

It’s New Year’s Eve, the end of the old year, and everyone is celebrating, everyone that is, except for the little match girl. She is sitting, shivering in a cold, lonely corner of the city. For all too brief a moment, her matches bring her warmth and happiness and she dreams of a happier life.

ISBN: 9781913021023

Word Count 717

The Tortoise and the Hare

Tortoise is very slow and Hare is very fast. One day they have a race. Who wins? Read and find out.

ISBN: 9781913021009

Word Count 500

The Little Toy Soldier

One day, a little boy gets a box of toy soldiers for his birthday. He is very happy. One toy soldier is his favourite, and this toy soldier has many adventures.

ISBN: 9781913021030

The Lion and the Mouse

The Lion and the Mouse is one of Aesop’s best-loved fables. It is about a little mouse who helps a big, strong lion.

ISBN: 11122234

Word Count 500

LEVEL 2

King Midas and the Golden Touch

King Midas is rich but he wants to be richer. He makes a wish. He wants everything he touches to turn to gold. However, he soon finds out that gold cannot make him happy.

ISBN: 9781913021054

The Pied Piper of Hamelin

Rats take over the town of Hamelin and a piper dressed in colourful clothes tells the mayor that he can save the town. The piper keeps his promise but the mayor does not.

ISBN: 9781913021061

Word Count 1,800

The Trojan Horse

The Trojan Horse is the story of how the Greeks used a wooden horse to trick the Trojans, rescue the beautiful Queen Helen and end a ten-year war.

ISBN: 9781913021085

King Arthur and the Sword in the Stone

King Uther Pendragon is dying. The country needs a new king. Merlin has a plan. The man who wins his competition, will be the next king. Everyone is very excited.

ISBN: 9781913021047

Word Count 1,800

The Selfish Giant

The Selfish Giant is the story of a giant who didn’t want any children to go into his beautiful garden. He built a big wall round it. After that, it was always winter in the garden, and the giant was cold and lonely. Then one day, spring returned to the garden again.

ISBN: 9781913021078

LEVEL 3

Treasure Island

Treasure Island is an adventure story. Jim Hawkins, a lucky young boy, finds a treasure map in an old chest. Then, he sails on a ship to an island with some dangerous pirates. Jim and his friends must find the treasure before the pirates.

ISBN: 9781913021122

Word Count 4,750

The Snow Queen

The Snow Queen is one of Hans Christian Andersen’s best-loved tales. Kay and Gerda are best friends. They do everything together, until a splinter of glass hardens Kay’s heart, and the Snow Queen takes him to her icy palace. Heartbroken, Gerda sets out to find her friend.

ISBN: 9781913021115

Word Count 3,800

The Railway Children

When their father goes away, Roberta, Phyllis and Peter have to leave London and go and live in a little house in the countryside. The three children are very excited to find that their new house is near a railway. They have many adventures there, and they discover what really happened to their father.

ISBN: 9781913021146

Word Count 5,645

The Red-Headed League

Who are the Red-Headed League? And why did they suddenly disappear? Join top detective, Sherlock Holmes and his partner, Dr Watson to solve this mystery.

ISBN: 9781913021139

Word Count 5,300

Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland is the story of a little girl, who follows a white rabbit down a rabbit hole into a magical world, where she meets a cast of fabulous and absurd characters, such as the vanishing Cheshire Cat, a Dodo, the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts.

ISBN: 9781913021108

Word Count 3,825

LEVEL 4

The Adventure of the Red Circle

Who is the mystery lodger and what is the red circle? Sherlock Holmes’s landlady asks him to help her solve this mystery. Her new lodger never goes out and nobody ever sees him. Who is he and why is he hiding? With surprising twists and secret codes, this story takes us from Naples in Italy to New York in America and then to London in England.

ISBN: 9781913021177

Word Count 6,436

The Canterville Ghost

Horace B. Otis, a wealthy American, buys Canterville Chase, an old English manor house, even though, Lord Canterville warns him that the house is haunted. He moves into the house with his wife, his eldest son Washington, his daughter Virginia, and his two younger twin sons. The ghost has been haunting the house for three hundred years, so he is very upset that the modern American family are not scared of him.

ISBN: 9781913021214

Word Count 7,677

Black Beauty

Black Beauty is a beautiful, good-tempered horse who lived in England many years ago. In this book, he tells us the story of his life and we see the world through his eyes. He lived through good times and bad times, he had kind owners and selfish owners. He made many friends and he had many adventures. Anna Sewell, the author loved horses, and she wanted to show her readers that horses have feelings too and we must always treat them kindly.

ISBN: 9781913021153

Word Count 9,231

The Secret Garden

Mary Lennox, a spoilt and lonely little girl is sent to live with her uncle in a beautiful, big, old house in Yorkshire. The house and its large garden are full of secrets and mystery. Together with the help of two new friends and a very special little bird, Mary learns to be kinder and friendlier, and she finds happiness for the first time in her life.

ISBN: 9781913021184

Word Count 9,887

A Christmas Carol

Ebenezer Scrooge is a mean and greedy old man whose only love is money. Then, one Christmas Eve he is visited by the ghost of his dead business partner, Jacob Marley. Marley tells him, that three ghosts will visit him that night. The three ghosts come and they show Scrooge scenes from his past, his present and his future. Scrooge understands that he must be kinder and more generous, and he learns to keep the spirit of Christmas in his heart.

ISBN: 9781913021160

Word Count 10,725

LEVEL 5

The Prince and the Pauper

By chance, a poor young boy called Tom Canty meets the rich Prince Edward, the son of King Henry VIII of England. The two boys look like twins, only their clothes are different. For fun, they decide to try on each other’s clothes, and this leads to many unexpected adventures. Tom lives a life of luxury as a prince and later as a king. He makes some wise decisions, and he is seen as a good and fair king. Prince Edward discovers just how difficult it is to be poor, and he learns to have sympathy for his citizens. Perhaps, after his experiences as a poor man he will become a wiser and fairer King, too.

ISBN: 9781913021191

Word Count 13,411

Daddy-Long-Legs

Eighteen-year-old Judy Abbott has spent her childhood in an orphanage. When a wealthy benefactor reads an amusing school essay written by her, he decides to pay for her college education. It’s like a dream come true. He believes she has a talent for writing and that she will one day become a successful writer. In return, she must write him a letter once a month. They will never meet and she must never know who he is. She will know him only as John Smith, a boring name that she decides not to use. Instead she will call him Daddy-Long-Legs, as she knows that he is tall and thin. She saw his shadow as he left the orphanage. Who is this mysterious benefactor and will she ever meet him? The story is written in the form of a series of letters – the letters that Judy writes to Daddy-Long-Legs.

ISBN: 9781913021221

Word Count 16,653

Pygmalion

Eliza Doolittle, sells flowers in Covent Garden, Professor Higgins, a professor in phonetics tells Colonel Pickering, a specialist in Indian dialects that he can convince London society that the cockney flower girl is a duchess. Eliza just wants to speak properly so that she can have her own flower shop, so she agrees to have lessons. George Bernard Shaw’s most famous play was adapted as the musical My Fair Lady.

ISBN: 9781913021238

Word Count 15,298

The Blue Diamond

A precious diamond is stolen from the hotel room of the Countess of Morcar. On Christmas morning, a goose and an old hat are found on Tottenham Court Road and the diamond is found inside the goose. How did it get inside the goose and who stole it? This is the mystery that Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson must solve.

ISBN: 9781913021245

Word Count 7,288

Around the World in Eighty Days

Phileas Fogg, a rich British gentleman reads in a newspaper that after the opening of a new railway in India, it will be possible to travel around the world in 80 days. His friends at his club think it’s not possible and he decides to prove them wrong. That same evening, he sets out with his servant Passepartout and a small bag full of banknotes for the journey. They make new friends and have many adventures, but can they really travel around the world in 80 days?

ISBN: 9781913021207