The Ant and the Grasshopper and Other Stories by Aesop

The stories in this book are more than a thousand years old. Some are serious. Most are funny. All make you think.

The Brave Little Tailor and Other Stories by the Brothers Grimm

You can read five fairy tales in this book. The stories take us to palaces and a tall tower. They take us into the dark forest. They lead us into fairyland.

The Emperor's New Clothes and Other Stories by Hans Christian Andersen

An emperor loves clothes. A tin soldier falls in love. A duckling thinks he is ugly. An emperor gets a new toy. A soldier finds a magic tinderbox. A prince wants to marry. Read these six favourite fairy tales to find out what happens to them all.

Folk Tales from Around the World

Folk tales are old stories. They started as part of family life. No one knows who first made them up. Usually older people told them to younger people. The five stories in this book come from different parts of the world.

Heroes and Heroines

Heroes and heroines are people who do something brave or good. They do not run away from danger. They help people. In this book, we meet two heroes and three heroines.

The Lion and the Mouse and Other Stories by Aesop

The stories in this book are more than two thousand years old. Some are serious. Most are funny. All make you think.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Alice is sitting by the river when suddenly a white rabbit runs past her. Then the rabbit takes a watch out of its coat pocket, and says it is late! She runs after the rabbit, and follows it into a large rabbit hole. This is how Alice's adventures in Wonderland begin.

The Call of the Wild and Other Stories

In the North it is so cold in winter that everything is covered with ice and snow. If you want to travel, you must use a sledge pulled by dogs. If you walk around in the cold, you must take great care to keep warm and dry. Why do people want to go to the North? They want to find gold there and become rich. These short stories are about some of the people and animals who lived and worked in the North, and how they fought to stay alive.

The Golden Goose and Other Stories

Three brothers go to cut wood. The two older brothers come home with nothing, but the youngest one is given a bird with golden feathers. Two sisters, one kind, the other horrible, get water from a spring. The kind girl becomes rich. Her sister lives alone and never speaks again. Find out what happened in these and other fairy tales.

Just So Stories

At the beginning of time, the animals were quite different from the ones we see today. Can you imagine a zebra with no stripes or a leopard with no spots? The first elephant did not have a trunk to swat flies with, and the first camel did not have a hump. How did they become the animals we know today? Read these strange and amazing stories to find out.

Little Women

The four March girls work hard while their father is away at war. Life is hard, but the girls still have time for fun. The girls all learn something, and grow up a little, while their father is away. When he finally comes home, his 'little women' have a few surprises for him.

The Wizard of Oz

Dorothy and her little dog, Toto, are carried by a cyclone from her aunt and uncle's house in Kansas. When they come down, they find themselves in the land of Oz. There Dorothy begins an exciting journey with her new friends. They want to go and see the wonderful Wizard of Oz in the Emerald City. Only he can give them what they want.

A Christmas Carol

A mean, lonely old man has an unpleasant surprise when he reaches the front door of his home on the night before Christmas. As he looks at the door knocker, it turns into the face of a friend who has been dead for many years! This is just the beginning of a long night in which Ebenezer Scrooge talks to his dead friend, and meets three other ghosts.

Gulliver's Travels — A Voyage to Lilliput

Gulliver's ship is lost in a storm, and he has to swim to save his life. After many hours, he reaches land. He lies down and falls asleep. When he wakes up, he can't get up. He is tied to the ground. His hair is tied down too, so he can't move his head. He feels something walking along his body. There, standing on his chest, is a man. He is no more than six inches tall!

The Jungle Book

Mowgli, the man cub, is raised by Mother Wolf and soon becomes her favourite. He learns about the Law of the Jungle from Baloo, the old brown bear, and Bagheera, the black panther. But Mowgli is in danger. Shere Khan, the bad-tempered old tiger, hates him and wants to kill him.

The Mill on the Floss

Maggie Tulliver is tall and beautiful, and she is clever. While Maggie's brother Tom works hard so that he can take over the flour mill which their father manages, Maggie's mind is on other matters.
Maggie loves the son of her father's greatest enemy. But the man who is expected to marry her cousin Lucy falls in love with Maggie.
Read this romantic and tragic story and discover Maggie's fate.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Huck is only fourteen when he escapes from his bad-tempered and no-good father. Soon he reaches Jackson's Island, and finds himself sharing the island with Jim, a runaway slave. Together they put all their things on a raft and set off on what becomes a great adventure down the Mississippi River.
Will Huck be caught by his father? Will Jim ever be a slave again? Read on to enjoy the exciting and amusing story of Huck Finn and his friends.

The Merchant of Venice and Other Stories from Shakespeare's Plays

Shylock, the moneylender, hates Antonio and wants to hurt him. He has an idea. He lends money to Antonio. If Antonio cannot pay back the money, he must give Shylock a pound of his flesh. From cold, dark Scotland to the blue sky of the Mediterranean, from the Danish court to the court of Britain long ago, these five well-known stories are filled with murder, madness and magic.

Robinson Crusoe

When Robinson Crusoe's ship is wrecked, he swims to a desert island. At first he is afraid that he might be eaten by wild animals. He knows that some people in that part of the world are cannibals, and they might eat him too! Soon, he realizes that he is all alone. He brings as much as he can from the wrecked ship, and over his long years on the island, he learns how to make himself safe and comfortable.

The Gifts and Other Stories

This collection of short stories by British, American, French and Russian writers begins with a simple tale about Christmas presents, and goes on to entertain us with strange, mysterious, frightening and exciting stories.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth

When Professor Lidenbrock and his nephew, Axel, find a secret paper telling them the way to the centre of the earth, the adventure of a lifetime begins. With a guide called Hans, they discover the mysteries and wonders of the world below the earth's surface.

King Solomon's Mines

Quatermain is returning home from a bad hunting trip, and he does not want any more adventures. But then he meets Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good, and soon the three of them are on a dangerous journey into the heart of Africa, in search of King Solomon's Mines.

Tales of Mystery and Imagination

A man lies in darkness, locked in a cell and sentenced to die. He reaches out to find ... nothing but emptiness, and the fear of what will happen to him. Another man goes to visit a childhood friend at the gloomy old House of Usher. His friend, Roderick, is very ill and slowly going mad. In these and six other classic tales, terrible things happen to people as they face their own fears and the evil deeds of others.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea

A strange monster has attacked several ships at sea. Professor Arronax, the famous French scientist, his servant Conseil, and Ned Land, who catches whales, join an expedition to search for the monster. What they find, however, is not a living creature at all, but an enormous submarine, the Nautilus, commanded by the mysterious Captain Nemo.

Three Men in a Boat

Three young men—George, Harris and J—and Montmorency (the dog) set off on a boating holiday up the River Thames. Their plan is to row, or tow, their boat from London to Oxford and back. All kinds of funny things happen as they travel from place to place.