Classic English Literature For Teens

Here is the multi award-winning SmartPass study guide with and without commentary options. This is a full-cast, unabridged performance, with comprehensive commentary and analysis, enabling students to fully understand and appreciate the play. Judge for yourself whether Lear is "a man more sinned against than sinning" in this moral tale that pits wisdom and age against ambition and youth. Experience and examine the power of Shakespeare's most cruel and violent tragedy.

The gothic tale of Frankenstein and his construction of a human being who runs amok has, with the help of numerous films, become one of the most vivid horror stories. But Mary Shelley's original novel, written in 1816, dealt more sympathetically with "the daemon," showing how an initially beneficent creature is hammered into a daemon by the way he is treated. Her ideas, and her dramatic but poignant story, is brought to life in this sound dramatization.

Like millions of other kids, Jim grew up wanting to be a superhero. Unlike most of his contemporaries, however, Jim actually had the goods: a plethora of super powers that would have been the envy of any meta on the planet. But when his tryout with the Alpha League - the world's premiere group of supers - goes disastrously wrong, Jim basically becomes an outcast. Two years later, Jim is still bitter about what happened to him. However, he soon finds himself the centerpiece in an odd turn of events.

The always delightful and entertaining classic Anne of Green Gables is performed by actors from The Online Stage! Anne Shirley is an 11-year-old orphan adopted by a middle-aged brother and sister, Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. They had wanted to adopt a boy to help with their farm on Prince Edward Island in the fictional town of Avonlea. Matthew persuades Marilla to give Anne a chance. Anne is a handful, and they fall in love with her.

Anne of Green Gables is a 1908 novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery. Written for all ages, it has been considered a children's novel since the mid-twentieth century. It recounts the adventures of Anne Shirley, an 11-year-old orphan girl who is mistakenly sent to Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, a middle-aged brother and sister who had intended to adopt a boy to help them on their farm in Prince Edward Island. The novel recounts how Anne makes her way with the Cuthberts, in school, and within the town.

Lemuel Gulliver, English surgeon turned ship captain, embarks on four fantastic voyages, each a clash with strange beings and cultures - from the eccentric to the odious. Island by island, he meets the savage but tiny Lilliputians, the hideous Yahoos, a stable of talking horses, a race of decrepit immortals, and the ghosts of Julius Caesar and Homer.

Trapped in a forgotten city, bound by secrets, Ellie and Bealomondore must enlist the dragons of the watch to find freedom. Ellie knows exactly where she is going. She just wants to experience the pomp and circumstance of a royal wedding, then settle into a simple life with a country husband. With too many choices, Bealomondore’s future is a tangle of possibilities. He is respected, well-known, and admired among the elite of Chiril, but Wulder demands he narrow his focus and follow his Creator, one step at a time.

In this fast-paced survival story set in Hawaii, electronics fail worldwide, the islands become completely isolated, and a strange starscape fills the sky. Leilani and her father embark on a nightmare odyssey from Oahu to their home on the Big Island. Leilani's epilepsy holds a clue to the disaster, if only they can survive as the islands revert to earlier ways.

Robin Hood's father may now be Sheriff of Nottingham and working hard to root out police corruption and the remains of Guy Gisborne's criminal empire, but the Sherwood rebel's problems are far from over. Former sheriff Marjorie Kovacevic has been elected national president promising to round up illegal refugees and migrants and use the army to wipe out the rebels and bandits who control Sherwood Forest. But she needs to pass a new law before she can send in the troops to recapture Robin's home, Sherwood Castle.

This is the story of a boy's adventures growing up in a small town on the banks of the Mississippi river over 100 years ago. The cheerful, adventurous hero plays truant to form a pirate band and, together with his best friend, Huckleberry Finn, finds fun, excitement, and buried treasure along the shores of the great river.

One day, 13-year-old Jessie Bollier is earning pennies playing his fife on the docks of New Orleans; the next, he is kidnapped and thrown aboard a slave ship, where his job is to provide music while shackled slaves "dance" to keep their muscles strong and their bodies profitable. As the endless voyage continues, Jessie grows increasingly sickened by the greed, brutality, and inhumanity of the slave trade, but nothing prepares him for the ultimate horror he will witness before his nightmare ends - a horror that will change his life forever.

For a century Bram Stoker's Dracula has reigned supreme as the undisputed masterpiece of horror writing. We have all grown up under the shadow of the elegant Count, at once an attractive, brutal and erotic creature of the night. The gothic tale of Frankenstein and his construction of a human being which runs amok, has, with the help of numerous films, become one of the most vivid horror stories.

"I'm youth, I'm joy...I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg." The story of the little boy who refused to grow up has captured the imagination of generations of children (and the adults they grew into) since its publication in 1904. Peter Pan flies in through the bedroom window one night and teaches Wendy, John, and Michael to fly. He takes them away to endless adventures in the magical Neverland, where they meet the wicked Captain Hook and a host of other characters...

Jerusalem, 1192. The Third Crusade rages on. Rahma al-Hud loyally followed her elder sister Zeena into the war over the Holy Land, but now that the Faranji invaders have gotten reinforcements from Richard the Lionheart, all she wants to do is get herself and her sister home alive. But Zeena, a soldier of honor at heart, refuses to give up the fight while Jerusalem remains in danger of falling back into the hands of the false Queen Isabella. And so, Rahma has no choice but to take on one final mission with her sister.

Lann knows nothing of his mysterious past, but by his 15th birthday he will come face to face with destiny. For Lann must wield the Dreadblade, an ancient sword forged to defeat terrible monsters. Across the mountains a King has been murdered. His daughter, Astrid, is a warrior with no desire to bear the crown. Only she can uncover her father’s killer before her brother is framed for the crime. Evil is stirring. Lann and Astrid are the kingdom’s last defence. Together, they must face the greatest darkness their world has ever known.

The story is a double play: is it the story of a woman going mad, or a woman possessed by something evil? We begin to suspect that the narrator’s apparently caring husband John may not be as caring as she thinks. Is he trying to control her? We know that Charlotte was much concerned with the emancipation of women and them achieving financial independence, so is the character of John an echo of this?

A golden statue comes to life and, with the help of a reluctant swallow, gives away everything he has. A fierce giant forbids children to play in his garden -- then realizes that only through sharing will spring ever come again. In these rich fables by Oscar Wilde, author of The Importance of Being Earnest, characters learn that kindness and giving are the greatest powers of all.

This once-celebrated sequel of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn picks up right where Tom, Huck, and Jim's travels along the Mississippi ended. Tom enjoys his status as "Tom Sawyer the Traveler" and hopes to further his reputation. Little does he know how far his desire to stay ahead of his biggest rival will take them this time - overseas in an eccentric inventor's balloon!

Annabelle Doll and Tiffany Funcraft are two dolls who have been best friends since they met in Kate Palmer's house at 26 Wetherby Lane. In this sequel to The Doll People, they hitch a ride in Kate's backpack and find themselves in the biggest adventure of their lives, a day at school!

This classic book brings out the true spirit of the Gold Rush days at the turn of the last century. It portrays the brutality, kindness, love, and folly that Jack London experienced first-hand during his time in the far north. It was his first successful book, and catapulted him to literary fame.