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.

    Novel-Ties study guides contain reproducible pages in a chapter by chapter format to accompany a work of literature of the same title.

    Meanwhile, her older sister Peggy works as an apprentice at the Girls' School, hoping for a more prosperous future as a schoolteacher.Jennet and Titus Eastwood have always made decisions for their daughters' futures. But as the sisters near adulthood they are determined to make their own choices. And with temptation in the way, will the girls find love - or infatuation - leads them astray?Then an unexpected but familiar face arrives in town, and the family's future is threatened. For Bessie and Jennet, a difficult choice must be made - love or family . . .

    Her father was a chimneysweep and she loved him. He was all she had after her mother took off with a man Maggie stumbled upon when she was sent home from school because she came without a lunch…again. From five years old, her life centered on herself and her father. His many years working in soot filled chimneys took a toll on his health until Maggie was fifteen. Their hope of one day buying a little cottage in the country where they would enjoy the fresh clean air and home grown food was close to becoming a reality when his body could not recover from the years of abuse, leaving Maggie on her own. Traveling west with nothing but their few household possessions, ‘Old Mule’, and a wagon, Maggie began her new life alone but determined to find a place that the money they saved over the years would buy. Occasionally, she would supplement her supplies by cleaning a chimney, picking up information along the way.

    The village master has given her his blessing, but on the condition that she return—no matter what— by her 15th birthday. Join Cassie on her adventure, as she battles spiders, creepers and other enemies to find a Prismarine Shard, the one thing that can help her find John. Other books in this exciting Minecraft series Book 1: The Search for John, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GGBR5AE? Book 3: Going Home, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GGBRDGA? Author’s Note: This short story is for your reading pleasure. The characters in this "Minecraft Adventure Series" such as Steve, Endermen or Herobrine...etc are based on the Minecraft Game coming from Minecraft ®/TM & © 2009-2013 Mojang / Notch

    It’s a little, green monster that is interested in only one thing- Max’s lunch box! Max and his friend Alex come up with a plan to trap the monster. Will they succeed?

    An inconsequential inconvenience.After eight years of dreaming of an unknown mother rescuing her from the workhouse, Beth is unexpectedly liberated to become an apprentice in Mr Whitaker's tailor's shop. Against all the odds, Mrs Whitaker becomes a maternal figure to the young girl who shows all the signs of a gifted seamstress.But fate's cruel hand had not finished denying Beth the comforts of a family.Lady Caroline comes into Beth's life as a godsend. A wealthy patron in need of beautiful dresses to be made. But there is more to her appearing at the tailor's shop at first apparent. Two lives from different classes become intertwined in the worst of conditions.Is having a family worth such suffering? Should the women deny each other and be relieved of the tortures beset upon them in the name of greed and a family name? Was the madness real? Would the answers be found along the unforgiving corridors of the asylum?

    However, doubts soon begin to surface and he is forced to return to the place of his childhood, Hambley Wood, in his quest for the truth.To find the register that proves his birth, he has to enlist the help of the astonishingly beautiful vicar’s daughter, Arrabella. Unfortunately, they are soon drawn into series of frightening adventures which brings them together and ignites a passion that neither of them can ignore. However, while the mishaps draw them closer, the truth about Harper’s ancestry tears them apart. Can a future ever be theirs, or will a cruel twist of fate, and affairs of the past, prevent them ever having a future together?

    Before their old master died, her family lived in comfortable servants' quarters beside a garden where birdsong echoed through the day. But the new young master turned them out, and now Olive, her parents, and her five-year-old brother Jimmy are struggling to get by. In their cold and desolate tenement, Olive sings to Jimmy about the birds of the garden, trying to cling to hope. Things go from bad to worse when Father succumbs to consumption. Without his job at the docks, the family can't get by. They try to survive on the streets, but it's an impossible task for a destitute mother and her two small children. Olive embarks on a journey of loss and survival in the brutal setting of Victorian London. She has to survive the deaths of loved ones, the appalling conditions in the slums of Old Nichol, and worst of all, the horrors of a match factory and the deadly diseases lurking inside. But one bright thread runs through her story: a kind and handsome boy who gives her bread and whistles just like a nightingale. Might he be the thread by which she can pull herself back up into a better life?

     The Battle Island mailman is missing, and only one person in the whole world can save him. Unfortunately, that person is done being a hero. Pete Kartson never asked for his island home to turn into a battle royale warzone. He’d certainly prefer that people in goofy costumes didn’t hack through his ceiling every morning at 7 a.m. And he really doesn’t feel like facing off against a crazed madman again. But Pete might not have a choice. Strange things are going on at Battle Island, and it’s looking like Mailman Dale is at the center of everything. Can Pete and his friends solve the mystery before it’s too late for everyone? The Monster of Battle Island is the second in a series of funny, action-packed battle royale adventures. It's a great way to convince reluctant readers to set down the controller for a few minutes and pick up a book. The Monster of Battle Island is perfect for fans of video game books for kids like the Trapped in a Video Game series and Cube Kid books.

    The family names change with marriage, but difficulties have followed. Settled now in Tennessee with their youngest daughter, Norabell, they move near their oldest daughter, August. There is one secret that could tear their family apart. Is truth the best answer, even when it means breaking promises? Old acquaintances of Lottie and her family are sworn enemies from an old incident in Cocke County, Tennessee. They now find themselves neighbors once again. They have learned neither the lessons that come from seeking revenge nor its cost.

    Outnumbered eight to one, the Dutchman sits perched on a bench near Savage Peak, watching the fugitives as they ride out onto the open prairie. He adjusts the sights of his Remington No. 1 Rifle and waits as the first rider comes into range. When he stops shooting, three of her captors lay sprawled on the prairie...dead. After striking the first deadly blows, the Dutchman trails the group across South Pass through the unpredictable Wyoming springtime weather, like the fourth horseman of the apocalypse…and surely Hell goes with him.

    Deputy Marshal Harold Stampede. But the outlaw has managed to break out and take a dozen hardened convicts with him as they sweep a path of violence across Southern Arizona. The leader of the gang has sworn an oath to kill the deputy marshal for shooting dead his partner, Jimmy So-Fast. And Marshal One-Eyed Jack Black intends to do whatever he can to stop him and protect the citizens of Cochise County – all this, while an unsuspecting killer is on the loose in Peirce City during the lawmen’s absence.

    She is relieved to find a man willing to take on a pregnant wife, and resolves to make the union work. Even is the man is a bit loud, spends too much time at the pub, and speaks to her as if she had no mind of her own. Robert Killiam works as a bricklayer in the city, and living a solitary life has not does much for his manners. He’s used to folks who speak their mind, and mild-mannered Alice seems happy to go along with whatever he suggests. She’s lovely and kind, but—he thinks—also a bit dull. But the Christmas holiday bring back sad memories for Alice, and she finally puts her foot down. Robert sees something new in this timid woman, and he’s more determined than ever to make her happy. And when the baby suddenly arrives early, he realizes how much this budding family has already changed his life.

    The action of this exciting historical mystery romance takes place in the lively and pulsating world of Restoration London, with its bear-baiting and dog-fighting pits, with its taverns and bawdy houses, its libertines and Puritans, its fops and its society beauties. In the cold winter of 1664, the Thames has frozen over, and a great comet has appeared in the skies above the city of London. The comet seems a portent of disaster because England is in a deeply troubled and divided state. The King, Charles II, had been welcomed back as a saviour four years before, but is now resented by increasing numbers of his own people. And war too is looming with the Dutch, England’s great seagoing trade rivals… Molly Titchen is a precocious 16-year-old orange seller at the new King’s Theatre in Drury Lane who dreams of becoming an actress, and strutting the stage in breeches parts. Yet being an actress in the King’s company seems to be a dangerous choice of profession at present as a succession of young actresses die in mysterious circumstances. The leader of the company, Sir Thomas Killigrew, asks a wealthy young physician and merchant, Henry Raven, to investigate the deaths of the actresses. Raven and his lawyer friends Anthony Mawdsley and Adam Strange are regular theatregoers and the three soon become drawn into the mysterious affairs at the King’s theatre. Yet Mawdsley is also chief secretary to the Lord Chancellor, the 1st Earl of Clarendon, and the King’s chief minister, and therefore has his hands full with affairs of state. When a mysterious masked man threatens the life of the King, Mawdsley is forced to turn to his friend Henry Raven for help. Raven in turn needs the help of the aspiring actress Molly, which brings them together in their search for a wicked murderer and a scarred madman with an evil plan for London on his mind...