Each book describes a classic novel and drama by explaining themes, elaborating on characters, and discussing each author's unique literary style, use of language, and point of view. Extensive illustrations and imaginative, enlightening use of graphics help to make each book in this series livelier, easier, and more fun to use than ordinary literature plot summaries. An unusual feature, "Mind Map" is a diagram that summarizes and interrelates the most important details that students need to understand about a given work. Appropriate for middle and high school students.

    Included are such favorites as "Hansel and Gretel," "The Brave Little Tailor," "Cinderella," "Little Red Riding Hood," "Sleeping Beauty," and "Snow White" as well as less familiar ones: "The Danced-Out Shoes," "The Golden Bird," "The Six Swans," "Mother Holle," and "Straw, Coal and Bean." Stanley Appelbaum provides excellent English translations on pages facing the original German, allowing students to read some of the finest stories of the Brothers Grimm in the original while simultaneously improving their German language skills.

    Brilliantly inventive adaptations of Guatemalan folk tales intermesh the technical virtuosity, incomparable imagination, and profound poetic vision of a giant of twentieth-century literature.

    Published only recently, it set sales records in the millions of copies and soon crossed over to other media as well--first as a radio and TV drama, then as a blockbuster movie. The popularity of the novel has spread across Asia as well, with hugely successful translations into Korean and Chinese. In the West, readers may be reminded of The Bridges of Madison County, another best-selling novel of blazing midlife passion--one with a very different outcome.Here the lovers are Kuki, a 54-year-old employee in a publishing company, and Rinko, a childless, 37-year-old woman unhappily married to a cold fish of a husband, a professor of medicine. Stuck in a dead-end job and an uneventful marriage, Kuki is irresistibly drawn to Rinko from their first encounter, seeing through her demure demeanor to the passionate woman beneath. She returns his feelings with ever-increasing abandon, despite lingering fears about where her sexual awakening may lead her. In the end, both are prepared to risk all for their relationship: family, career, and social standing, even life itself.The story contrasts the lovers' defiantly freewheeling passion--described in imaginative, smoldering detail--with a rigid society where people are expected to play a prescribed role, whether as dutiful wife or compliant office worker. In escaping these conventional roles, the lovers often escape the city as well, immersing themselves in the traditional beauties of Japanese nature and art as they give themselves over to each other and the pleasure of the moment. And ultimately they make a much more radical escape: one that will ensure that they are left in peace, to enjoy an abiding love.Perhaps not all the choices they make will seem reasonable, or even understandable, to Western readers. But their story, with elements as modern as yesterday's headlines and as timeless as the tug between love and death, opens a window into the secrets of the Japanese soul.

    Stories included are:The Lion and the CraneHow the Raja's Son Won the Princess LabamThe LambikinPunchkinThe Broken PotThe Magic FiddleThe Cruel Crane OutwittedLoving LailiThe Tiger, the Brahman and the JackelThe Soothsayer's SonHarisamanThe Charmed RingThe Talkative TortoiseA Lac of Rupees for a Bit of AdviceThe Gold-Giving SerpentThe Son of Seven QueensA Lesson for KingsPride Goeth Before a FallRaja RasaluThe Ass in the Lion's SkinThe Farmer and the Money LenderThe Boy Who had a Moon on his Forehead...The Prince and the FakirWhy the Fish LaughedThe Demon with the Matted HairThe Ivory City and its Fairy PrincessHow Sun, Moon and Wind Went Out to DinnerHow the Wicked Sons were DupedThe Pigeon and the Crow

    Favourites such as Jack the Giant-killer, Jack and the Beanstalk, Dick Whittington, The Three Little Pigs and The Babes in the Wood are all here among many others, but stories from different traditions also make their appearance, including The Three Bears and Little Red Hiding Hood.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    The stories vary in time, dating back to the 16th century to the present day, but each story has a way of getting under your skin. You will be thinking about these stories long after you have put the book down.Most of the stories are set in Okinawa, Japan's southern tropical islands, where the bloodiest battles of World War II were fought. As you might imagine, several stories focus on the war, the soldiers who fought and the civilians who endured.Some of the stories included are:The Grim ReaperThe truth behind the train responsible for the most suicides in Japan.The Nago NightwalkerSomething dark is lurking along highway 505.Haunting at Bise.What did Company H of the 6th Marines find on their recon mission in 1945? The Wreck of the Indian OakWhat really came ashore during that 1840 Typhoon?And nine more chilling stories."A very good read." Anne Poe Lehr, late cousin of Edgar Allen Poe

    At the foot of Mount Fuji, behind screen walls and amidst curls of incense smoke Iwajiro chants the Tenjin Sutra, an act of devotion learned from his beloved mother. On the side of the same mountain, twenty years on, he will sit in perfect stillness as the summit erupts, spitting fire and molten rock onto the land around him. This is not the first time he has seen hell. This man will become Hakuin, one of the greatest teachers in the history of Zen. His quest for truth will call on him to defy his father, to face death, to find love and to lose it. He will ask, what is the sound of one hand clapping? And he will master his greatest fear. Night Boat is the story of his tremendous life.

    The tales of the Norse Gods, of the giants, demons, trolls and dwarves still have the power to fascinate more than a thousand years after they were first told.

    In a shocking clash between the warriors and the merchant class of seventeenth century Japan, there emerged the most unlikely set of heroes--the forty-seven ronin, or ex-samurai, of Ako.

    Here you will find Shangri-La and El Dorado; Utopia and Middle Earth; Wonderland and Freedonia. Here too are Jurassic Park, Salman Rushdie's Sea of Stories, and the fabulous world of Harry Potter. The history and behavior of the inhabitants of these lands are described in loving detail, and are supplemented by more than 200 maps and illustrations that depict the lay of the land in a host of elsewheres. A must-have for the library of every dedicated reader, fantasy fan, or passionate browser, Dictionary is a witty and acute guide for any armchair traveler's journey into the landscape of the imagination.

    Valente. A collection of some of Catherynne Valente's most admired stories, including the Hugo Award-nominated novella "Silently and Very Fast" and the Locus Award finalist "13 Ways of Looking at Space/Time," with a brand-new long story to anchor the collection.Contents:The Melancholy of Mechagirl (2011) poemInk, Water, Milk (2013)Fifteen Panels Depicting the Sadness of the Baku and the Jotai (2010)Ghosts of Gunkanjima (2005)Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time (2010)One Breath, One Stroke (2012)Story No. 6 (2013)Fade to White (2012)The Emperor of Tsukayama Park (2005) poemKillswitch (2007)Memoirs of a Girl Who Failed to Be Born from a Peach (2005) poemThe Girl with Two Skins (2008) poemSilently and Very Fast (2011)

    She routinely arrives late, leaves early, or doesn’t show up at all, and skips gym as a matter of course. She’s pretty, and the boys take to whispering that she’s a cloistered princess. As the self-described worst loser in her class soon finds out, they just don’t know what a monster she is.So begins a tale of mysterious maladies that are supernatural in origin yet deeply revealing of the human psyche, a set of case files as given to unexpected feeling as it is to irreverent humor. So begins the legendary novel that kicked off the MONOGATARI series, whose anime adaptations have enjoyed international popularity and critical acclaim.This first of three parts introduces Senjogahara and Hachikuji, and fans of the blockbuster prequel KIZUMONOGATARI will be delighted to meet their favorite crazies again: the weirdly reliable narrator Araragi, class president among class presidents Hanekawa, shady problem-solver Oshino, and a certain pale, blonde former vampire.

    The mythic legacy of the Scandinavians includes a cycle of stories filled with magnificent images from pre-Christian Europe. Gods, humans, and monstrous beasts engage in prodigious drinking bouts, contests of strength, greedy schemes for gold, and lusty encounters. The Norse pantheon includes Odin, the wisest and most fearsome of the gods; Thor, the thundering powerhouse; and the exquisite, magic-wielding Freyja. Their loves, wars, and adventures take us through worlds both mortal and divine, culminating in a blazing doomsday for gods and humans alike. These stories bear witness to the courage, passion, and boundless spirit that were hallmarks of the Norse world.“Kevin Crossley-Holland retells the Norse myths in clear, attractive prose . . . An excellent introduction, notes, and a glossary provide mythological and historical backgrounds and suggest parallels with myths in other parts of the world.”–The Denver Post