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.

    She visited China for the first time in 1987 and found it just as her mother had said: "As soon as my feet touched China, I became Chinese".

    However, of equal interest are the rare stories of those captives who did not wish to escape but were forcibly rescued. One such story is that of Cynthia Ann Parker, mother of famous Comanche Chief Quanah Parker. In 1860, Comanches led by Chief Peta Nocona conducted numerous raids on various Texas settlements, culminating in the brutal violence. Texas Ranger Captain and future governor Lawrence S. Ross responded to these raids by attacking a Comanche camp on Pease River. Caught fleeing the destroyed Comanche camp was a woman with blue eyes who could not speak English and did not remember her birth name or details of her life prior to joining the Comanche. She proved to be Cynthia Ann Parker, taken prisoner by Comanches at the fall of Parker's Fort 24 years before. She had married a young Comanche chief named Peta Nocona, and had two boys and a baby girl. One of her sons, Quanah Parker, became one of the greatest Comanche chiefs of all time. In 1886, James T. DeShields published the book "Cynthia Ann Parker: The Story of Her Capture," which recounts events he had masterfully pieced together from narratives furnished Ross, various Parker relatives, together with most of the numerous partial accounts of the fall of Parker’s Fort and subsequent relative events. In describing Parker's return to her family, DeShields writes: "But as savage-like and dark of complexion as she was, Cynthia Ann was still dear to her overjoyed uncle, and was welcomed home by relatives with all the joyous transports with which the prodigal son was hailed upon his miserable return to the parental roof. As thorough an Indian in manner and looks as if she had been so born, she sought every opportunity to escape, and had to be closely watched...." About the author James Thomas DeShields (1861-1948), was a Texas historian and author of historical works including: • Border Wars of Texas • Two months in the camp of Big Bear • They Sat in High Places: The Presidents and Governors of Texas • The Fall of Parker's Fort • The Fergusons, "Jim and Ma"

    Previously published as Brothers in Arms, this edition includes a new preface by the author.When William Broyles Jr. was drafted, he was a twenty-four-year-old student at Oxford University in England, hoping to avoid military service. During his physical exam, however, he realized that he couldn’t let social class or education give him special privileges. He joined the marines, and soon commanded an infantry platoon in the foothills near Da Nang. More than a decade later, Broyles found himself flooded with emotion during the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. He decided to return to Vietnam and confront what he’d been through. Broyles was one of the very first combat veterans to return to the battlefields. No American before or since has gone so deeply into the other side of the war: the enemy side. Broyles interviews dozens of Vietnamese, from the generals who ran the war to the men and women who fought it. He moves from the corridors of power in Hanoi—so low-tech that the plumbing didn’t work—to the jungles and rice paddies where he’d fought. He meets survivors of American B-52 strikes and My Lai, and grieves with a woman whose son was killed by his own platoon. Along the way, Broyles also explores the deep bonds he shared with his own comrades, and the mystery of why men love war even as they hate it. Amidst the landscape of death, his formerly faceless enemies come to life. They had once tried to kill each other, but they are all brothers now.

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

    Rudolfo Anaya returns to the deeply spiritual themes of his hugely popular Bless Me, Ultima with this insightful tale of a prophet and his message to save humankind from itself.

    Medve is six foot three and living with her family in a crumbling art deco hotel on a small island, off the coast of England. She is "single-minded, oestrogen-fuelled and cunning", with a foul mouth and scattershot approach to story telling. Medve means bear in Hungarian and she gives the novel all the bite, ferocity and feral charm of her namesake.Five Miles From Outer Hope is a compact book but, as usual, Nicola Barker manages to compress an awful lot in under 200 pages. Her work is darkly comic--weird, furtive and slightly rude. Her characters are unlikely, sometimes unlikeable, but they pack a huge punch. Medve is a roiling mass of hormones, her sister, Christobel, has swapped her "lovely breasts ... tiny chocolate-button-tipped conches, soft as a moth's wing, pale as a priest's kiss" for "tits like torpedoes"; brother Feely, age four, is obsessed by the melancholy death of Shiro Chan, Queen of the Deer of Nara, and plump pre-pubescent Patch, the youngest girl, is knowledgeable and secretive. Into this family affair comes 19-year-old La Roux, a deserter from the South African army (The Sauce) with ginger hair, "very bad skin and even worse instincts". Medve and La Roux embark on a barbed flirtation, full of simmering sexuality and bad intentions, which ends in the very destructive "Operation Vagina" involving crochet knickers and a "five inch, red-coloured, jelly-textured, thirty-seven-scraggy-legged centipede." Things are never the same again. Nicola Barker's superb sixth book is sly and subversive --Eithne Farry

    If you have not yet bought the original copy, make sure to purchase it before buying this unofficial summary from aBookaDay. SPECIAL OFFER $2.99 (Regularly priced: $3.99) It is just a daily train ride, a little imagination running wild as she enjoys the scenery from her window seat. It is something we all do, right? Rachel Watson makes up innocent stories about the people she sees. For Rachel it is comforting, something steadfast in her crumbling world. She rides the train every morning like she always has, but without the purpose she once had. Her failed marriage and her descent into alcoholism make her an outcast. She rides into town to a job she no longer has, only to come back at the end of the day to a roommate she is lying to. She has no purpose and nothing seems to be changing until she witnesses something important. Rachel’s favorite imaginary couple that she peers at every day from the train seem to be having trouble. She calls them “Jason” and “Jess”. Rachel can’t quite figure out where she fits in. She was wandering around in a drunken stupor the night “jess” disappears. Rachel starts trying to regain her memories from that night. She tries to piece together the memories of that hazy night. Rachel’s new found hobby is a welcome distraction from her life and problems. She has been dealing not only with an ex-husband, but his new wife as well. Once his mistress, Anna is now having Tom’s baby. Rachel feels inadequate as a result of her infertility and her alcohol problems, blaming herself for the demise of her marriage. Rachel starts out trying to offer a little information into what might have happened to “Jess”, but she becomes obsessed with the case and the people in it. Rachel tries to fill a void with strangers and a case that, supposedly, has nothing to do with her. As Rachel learns to trust herself and her instincts she comes face to face with something she never expected. Read more.... Download your copy today! for a limited time discount of only $2.99! Available on PC, Mac, smart phone, tablet or Kindle device. © 2015 All Rights Reserved

    The novel was so successful that it had earned him a Pulitzer Prize back in 1961. The story of the novel revolves around historical background of American society in the middle of 20th century, prior to the African-American Civil Rights Movement, which was largely led by racism and the cruel regime of white people towards the colored minority. Main character of the novel is a woman nicknamed Scout and her family that, unlike many other white families from that time, raise their voices against the justice system which proclaims racism against African-American people. Read more....

    Wheels spin within wheels in Spark’s comedy of betrayals and terrorism, set in her beloved Venice.Layers of intrigue; triangulating love affairs; murders; international spy-craft; adultery; parental interference; the sweet careless rapture of youth; unmarked graves — Territorial Rights claims much ground and Muriel Spark enjoys a wicked dance on it.

    This fascinating catalog of the comic relates the ironic and ludicrous adventures of a noted (but mysterious) English travel-book writer whose reported “death” throws the London literary world into a tizzy. Anthony Powell is also the author of O, How the Wheel Becomes It! and Venusberg.

    Some remembered her as the innocent daughter of a local minister, while others whispered rumors about a recent lascivious turn. Was she really the 'other woman' who came between her friends' engagement? Is it true she convinced someone to give up a life of crime? Did she really spend time in jail for a DUI? After failing to maintain a blogging career, Jessica Carter must return to her home town of Hampton, New Hampshire. The place is nice enough: a beautiful summer destination with sandy beaches, a touristy boardwalk and a cozy, small-town atmosphere. But Jessica knows coming home means owning up to her mistakes and mending relationships with everyone she left behind. Corinne's death brings Jessica closer to her former friends, but as she digs into Corinne's life, she exposes dark secrets her friends wish would remain hidden. Caught between her investigation and her friends, Jessica seeks to answer the one question everyone else seems content to leave unresolved: who knew the real Corinne, and why would someone want her dead?

    At thirty-four she finds that her external life of dreary routine fails to match up to her lush, wistful and dreamy internal life. Norah, her energetic and chaotic friend, is equally settled in her own marriage to an irritable university professor.Then Hugh Miller and his sister Claire descend upon the quiet town. On all four, the hypnotic charm of these two visitors exerts an enchanting spell. And after their departure, life - having been violently disrupted - will never be quite the same again . . .

    She was smart, attractive and well educated. After losing the love of her life she decided she had to get away from it all. Ravenna did what everyone would love to do…, she left and never looked back. She made a comfortable life on a small Greek island paradise nestled in the southern blue Aegean sea. It was filled with friendly people, beautiful beaches and warm sunny days. The strong willed woman thought she had left her life behind her… but she was wrong. Now, torn between memories and guilt, she must decide- but will she get…a second chance?

    Costello's spellbinding novel, The Rag Tree, breathes dark, vivid life into Ireland's passionate legends. Crisp and sharp-witted, Costello's tale probes a modern Ireland torn between letting go of time-honored dreams and embracing the promises of a prosperous New Ireland. Even as they struggle against one another, the Irish Special Branch, the British Army, Scotland Yard, and the I.R.A. find themselves forced to ally against a common foe: The Rag Man. Mattie Joe Treacy is the Rag Man. Engrossed in a desperate quest to find his missing father, Mattie Joe is cursed-by the playboy's life of drink and carousing, by his family's staunch adherence to Ireland's old folk ways, and by a family curse hurled at his clan generations ago. The Curse of the O'Neills, invoked by an angry cleric against Mattie Joe's great-grandfather, declares that, "the eldest son will not survive the father." No Treacy son has since outlived his father, and Mattie Joe is next in line to die. Or is he?