Best of
School

1959

All But My Life: A Memoir


Gerda Weissmann Klein - 1959
    From her comfortable home in Bielitz (present-day Bielsko) in Poland to her miraculous survival and her liberation by American troops—including the man who was to become her husband—in Volary, Czechoslovakia, in 1945, Gerda takes the reader on a terrifying journey. Gerda's serene and idyllic childhood is shattered when Nazis march into Poland on September 3, 1939. Although the Weissmanns were permitted to live for a while in the basement of their home, they were eventually separated and sent to German labor camps. Over the next few years Gerda experienced the slow, inexorable stripping away of "all but her life." By the end of the war she had lost her parents, brother, home, possessions, and community; even the dear friends she made in the labor camps, with whom she had shared so many hardships, were dead. Despite her horrifying experiences, Klein conveys great strength of spirit and faith in humanity. In the darkness of the camps, Gerda and her young friends manage to create a community of friendship and love. Although stripped of the essence of life, they were able to survive the barbarity of their captors. Gerda's beautifully written story gives an invaluable message to everyone. It introduces them to last century's terrible history of devastation and prejudice, yet offers them hope that the effects of hatred can be overcome.

Flowers for Algernon


Daniel Keyes - 1959
    In diary entries, Charlie tells how a brain operation increases his IQ and changes his life. As the experimental procedure takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment seems to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance until Algernon begins his sudden, unexpected deterioration. Will the same happen to Charlie?

To Sir, With Love


E.R. Braithwaite - 1959
    Mr. Braithwaite, the new teacher, had first to fight the class bully. Then he taught defiant, hard-bitten delinquents to call him "Sir," and to address the girls who had grown up beside them in the gutter as "Miss".He taught them to wash their faces and to read Shakespeare. When he took all forty-six to museums and to the opera, riots were predicted. But instead of a catastrophe, a miracle happened. A dedicated teacher had turned hate into love, teenage rebelliousness into self-respect, contempt into into consideration for others. A man's own integrity - his concern and love for others - had won through. The modern classic about a dedicated teacher in a tough London school who slowly and painfully breaks down the barriers of racial prejudice, this is the story of a man's integrity winning through against the odds.

A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories


Ray Bradbury - 1959
    Contents: 1 • In a Season of Calm Weather • (1957) • short story by Ray Bradbury 7 • A Medicine for Melancholy • (1959) • short story by Ray Bradbury 16 • The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit • non-genre • (1958) • short story by Ray Bradbury 39 • Fever Dream • (1948) • short story by Ray Bradbury 46 • The Marriage Mender • (1954) • short story by Ray Bradbury 51 • The Town Where No One Got Off • (1958) • short story by Ray Bradbury 59 • A Scent of Sarsaparilla • (1953) • short story by Ray Bradbury 66 • The Headpiece • (1958) • short story by Ray Bradbury 74 • The First Night of Lent • [The Irish Stories] • (1956) • short story by Ray Bradbury 81 • The Time of Going Away • (1956) • short story by Ray Bradbury 88 • All Summer in a Day • (1954) • short story by Ray Bradbury 94 • The Gift • (1952) • short story by Ray Bradbury 97 • The Great Collision of Monday Last • [The Irish Stories] • (1958) • short story by Ray Bradbury 104 • The Little Mice • (1955) • short story by Ray Bradbury 109 • The Shore Line at Sunset • (1959) • short story by Ray Bradbury (variant of The Shoreline at Sunset) 118 • The Day It Rained Forever • (1957) • short story by Ray Bradbury 129 • Chrysalis • (1946) • short story by Ray Bradbury 150 • Pillar of Fire • (1948) • novelette by Ray Bradbury 188 • Zero Hour • (1947) • short story by Ray Bradbury 198 • The Man • (1949) • short story by Ray Bradbury 210 • Time in Thy Flight • (1953) • short story by Ray Bradbury 215 • The Pedestrian • (1951) • short story by Ray Bradbury 220 • Hail and Farewell • (1953) • short story by Ray Bradbury 228 • Invisible Boy • (1945) • short story by Ray Bradbury 237 • Come Into My Cellar • (1962) • short story by Ray Bradbury (variant of Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms in Your Cellar!) 254 • The Million-Year Picnic • [The Martian Chronicles] • (1946) • short story by Ray Bradbury (variant of The Million Year Picnic) 264 • The Screaming Woman • [Green Town] • (1951) • short story by Ray Bradbury 278 • The Smile • (1952) • short story by Ray Bradbury 284 • Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed • (1949) • short story by Ray Bradbury 299 • The Trolley • [Dandelion Wine] • (1955) • short story by Ray Bradbury 303 • Icarus Montgolfier Wright • (1956) • short story by Ray Bradbury

Sammy the Seal


Syd Hoff - 1959
    Along the way he finds a school full of kids and new things to do—and he even learns to read!"So funny and so original that it promises to be one of the most successful books in this best-selling series." (Publishers Weekly)Sammy the Seal is another hilarious, original story by Syd Hoff, the celebrated author of Danny and the Dinosaur. This Level One I Can Read is perfect for shared reading with a child.

Kiss Kiss


Roald Dahl - 1959
    William and Mary was later adapted for Roald's American television series 'Way Out and several of the stories appeared in British television adaptations for the series Tales of the Unexpected in the 1980s. Also included here is The Champion of the World - the first time Roald wrote about the man who would go on to become Danny's dad in Danny the Champion of the World.The stories featured in Kiss Kiss are: The LandladyWilliam and MaryThe Way up to HeavenParson's PleasureMrs Bixby and the Colonel's CoatRoyal JellyGeorgy PorgyGenesis and CatastropheEdward the ConquerorPigThe Champion of the World--roalddahl.com

My Side of the Mountain


Jean Craighead George - 1959
    Young Sam Gribley gets to the end of the block and keeps going--all the way to the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. There he sets up house in a huge hollowed-out tree, with a falcon and a weasel for companions and his wits as his tool for survival. In a spellbinding, touching, funny account, Sam learns to live off the land, and grows up a little in the process. Blizzards, hunters, loneliness, and fear all battle to drive Sam back to city life. But his desire for freedom, independence, and adventure is stronger. No reader will be immune to the compulsion to go right out and start whittling fishhooks and befriending raccoons. Jean Craighead George, author of more than 80 children's books, including the Newbery Medal-winning Julie of the Wolves, created another prizewinner with My Side of the Mountain--a Newbery Honor Book, an ALA Notable Book, and a Hans Christian Andersen Award Honor Book. Astonishingly, she wrote its sequel, On the Far Side of the Mountain, 30 years later, and a decade after that penned the final book in the trilogy, Frightful's Mountain, told from the falcon's point of view. George has no doubt shaped generations of young readers with her outdoor adventures of the mind and spirit. (Ages 9 to 12) --Emilie Coulter

Grob Basic Electronics [Student's Edition]


Bernard Grob - 1959
    It is presented in a full-color design, which allows students to read circuit diagrams and other important visuals easily.

The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico


Miguel León-Portilla - 1959
    Miguel León-Portilla had the incomparable success of organizing texts translated from Nahuatl by Ángel María Garibay Kintana to give us the The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico: Indigenous people of Tenochtitlán, Tlatelolco, Texcoco, Chalco and Tlaxcala were formed about the struggle against the conquerors and the final ruin of the Aztec world.An account of the omens that announced the disaster, a description of Cortes' progress, a chronicle of the heroic battle of the ancient Mexicans in defense of their culture and of their own lives, a civilization that was lost forever, a great epic poem of the origins of Mexican nationality, The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico is already a classic book and an indispensable reading work.

North by Northwest


Ernest Lehman - 1959
    His consolation is that he gets to romance an elegant female spy, but he soon learns that the game of international intrigue is played for high stakes. Ernest Lehman provides an introduction to this souvenir volume, published to coincide with the centenary of Hitchcock's birth, in which he describes the course of his cherishable collaboration with the master of suspense.

The Load of Unicorn


Cynthia Harnett - 1959
    Also published as The Cargo of the Madalena.Bendy, whose family runs a scrivener's shop in fifteenth-century London, solves the mystery when the master printer, William Caxton, fails to receive the paper shipped to him.

The Tanglewoods' Secret


Patricia St. John - 1959
    

Little Old Mrs. Pepperpot


Alf Prøysen - 1959
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Anthology of Children's Literature


Edna Johnson - 1959
    An anthology of nursery tales and rhymes, nonsense verse, poetry, folklore, mythology, epics, fiction, and non-fiction from a variety of sources.

High Adventure in Tibet


David V. Plymire - 1959
    

People in History


R.J. Unstead - 1959
    The author's voice is kindly and knowledgeable, and the prose style is easy to read. The text is illustrated throughout with excellent black and white line drawings by JCB Knight, as well as some colour plates. Although primarily written for young people, those of all ages can benefit from reading this book - either as a refresher, or as an introduction to British history.

Henry Ford: Young Man With Ideas (Childhood of Famous Americans)


Hazel B. Aird - 1959
    These lively, inspiring, believable biographies sweep today's young readers right into history.

Runes: An Introduction


Ralph Warren Victor Elliott - 1959
    This book is intended to serve as an introduction to the study of runes in general and of English runic inscriptions in particular.

Life Studies


Robert Lowell - 1959
    Most critics (including Helen Vendler, Steven Gould Axelrod, Adam Kirsch, and others) consider it one of Lowell's most important books, and the Academy of American Poets named it one of their Groundbreaking Books. Helen Vendler called Life Studies Lowell's "most original book." It won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1960.

A Source Book in Theatrical History


A.M. Nagler - 1959
    A rich resource for students of theater and theater historians, this volume features an annotated collection of more than 300 unusually interesting and detailed articles. Passages by contemporary observers from ancient Greece to modern times include notes on acting, directing, make-up, costuming, stage props, machinery, scene design, and much more. "Most valuable. An inspiring guide." — Theatre Notebook.

Interpretation and Obedience


Walter Brueggemann - 1959
    He assesses the nature of obedience today in such areas as ministry, justice, the land, education, hospitality, and the contemporary imagination.