Girls Classics

An Amish girl, Esther feels like "one black bird against the sky" in her plain clothes. So when she's forced to attend public school she's terrified. She fears the new world she must enter, fears the way she sticks out next to other kids, and--most of all--fears she may do what her brother did: Run away and join the sinful but great wide world she's only just discovering.

One day when she was younger and better looking, and when her voice was stronger, Nikolay Petrovitch Kolpakov, her adorer, was sitting in the outer room in her summer villa. It was intolerably hot and stifling. Kolpakov, who had just dined and drunk a whole bottle of inferior port, felt ill humoured and out of sorts. Both were bored and waiting for the heat of the day to be over in order to go for a walk. Read in English, unabridged.

She was an impulsive, fashionable, and carefree 1920's woman who embodied the essence of the Gatsby Girl, F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife, Zelda. As Fitzgerald said, "I married the heroine of my stories." All of the eight short stories contained in this collection were inspired by Zelda. Fitzgerald, one of the foremost writers of American fiction, found early success as a short story writer for the most widely read magazine of the early 20th century - The Saturday Evening Post.

"Il baule dei sogni" ("Anne of the Island") è il terzo libro degli otto volumi della serie di "Anne of Green Gables". Nel libro, Anna, che si è trasformata in una bella ragazza dai grandi occhi grigi e il naso perfetto, lascia Green Gables per la prima volta per andare al Redmond College dove si laureerà in lettere all'età di 18 anni ed abiterà a Patty’s Place con le sue amiche, non lontana dal luogo in cui è nata. Porterà con sé un baule colmo di ricordi, che rappresentano i suoi sogni e le sue speranze di ragazza. Il libro fu pubblicato nel 1915, dopo i primi due libri.

The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum is a children's novel, the seventh set in the Land of Oz. Characters include the Woozy, Ojo "the Unlucky", Unc Nunkie, Dr. Pipt, Scraps (the patchwork girl), and others. The book was first published on July 1, 1913. In 1914, Baum adapted the book to film through his "Oz Film Manufacturing Company."

Uncle Wiggily Longears is the main character and beloved icon of a series of children's stories by American author Howard R. Garis. He began writing the stories for the Newark News in 1910. Garis penned an Uncle Wiggily take every day for more than 52 years, and published some 79 books in his lifetime. Along the road on his many joyous and exciting episodic adventures Uncle Wiggily has run into several very questionable characters including: The Woozy Wolf, Bushy Bear, Skillery Skallery Alligator, and the fierce Bobcat.

Here's a heart-wrenching story about a poor little girl forced to sell matches on Christmas Eve. As she stumbles barefooted into a cold and lonely alley, she is enchanted by visions of Christmas wonders and her beloved grandmother long passed. "The Little Match Girl" is a tale that makes us all grateful for what we have this holiday season.

Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s most popular and enduring novel, Little Women. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War. It is no secret that Alcott based Little Women on her own early life.

On Prince Edward Island, where Anne Shirley grew up in the sea-sprayed town of Avonlea, there was no shortage of wonderful stories. There was the case of Ludovic Speed, who wouldn't propose to the woman he had courted for fifteen years until Anne devised a plan to "speed" him up . . . if it didn't backfire and break his heart. But no one could blame mischievous Anne for the hilarious battle of the sexes that erupted when a man-hating woman and her cat got quarantined in the same house with a woman-hating bachelor and his dog.

Pollyanna se vê obrigada a ir morar em Boston, longe de sua amada tia. Acolhida pela triste senhora Carew, ela percebe que as pessoas da cidade grande estão sempre fechadas e não gostam muito de conversar... Solitária mas sorridente, Pollyanna não se deixa abater e logo descobre como liberar a senhora Carew de sua infelicidade!

A short story from the British Library Crime Classic collection Final Acts. Anthony Wynne's series detective Dr Eustace Hailey becomes involved in the affairs of Lord and Lady Rushmore, the dancer Lalette Yorke, and their acquaintance Michael Dale, as lies and secrets escalate to a life-threatening climax.

On the far northwest coast of Tasmania at Cape Grimm lies the isolated and idiosyncratic community of Skye, which practises a religion that reveres the imagination. One clear evening in 1992 all the inhabitants enter the church hall, where they are locked in and burned alive. They have been persuaded to do this by a young man called Caleb Mean - also known as El Nino, the Christ Child.

In Enid Blyton's best-selling school series, Elizabeth Allen is sent away to boarding school and makes up her mind to be the naughtiest pupil there's ever been. In book 10, Elizabeth is overjoyed to be appointed monitor again. But one of the second-form boys is turning all the other boys against her, starting with a nasty note in her desk and ending with a false tip-off about a midnight pillow fight in the boys' dormitory. Can she find out who has a grudge against her - and why?

First published as Den Lille Pige med Svovlstikkerne in 1845, The Little Match Girl is one of Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen’s most poignant fairy tales. On New Year’s Eve a poor young match seller, too scared to go home to her abusive father, lights her remaining matches in order to stave off the cold. This collection also includes The Fir Tree and Little Ida’s Flowers.

Two delightful, fanciful, and heartwarming stories. "The Velveteen Rabbit" tells the tale of a stuffed rabbit that longs to become real, while "The Girl Who Owned a Bear" tells of a little girl who receives a magical book filled with the most unpredictable of magic.

Two little girls from different houses happened to meet in a lane between two homesteads, where the dirty water, after running through the farmyards, had formed a large puddle. One girl was very small, the other a little bigger. Their mothers had dressed them both in new frocks. The little one wore a blue frock, the other a yellow print, and both had red kerchiefs on their heads. They had just come from church when they met, and first they showed each other their finery, and then they began to play....

King Midas is obsessed with gold: counting it, touching it, imagining it. But when a strange young man grants his wish for a golden touch, things don't go quite as he planned -- particularly for his daughter Marigold. In these selections from classic American author Nathaniel Hawthorne's charming retellings of Greek myths, children meet Midas and another engaging troublemaker, Pandora, and learn lessons about love and forgiveness.

Few winter stories are more affecting than Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl. Written in 1848, and strictly speaking a New Year's Eve story, it showed so clearly then, as it does now, that the Christmas holidays do not represent fireside, food, and presents for all. This story never fails to move, yet it somehow avoids serious sentimentality.

En los locos años veinte, nació el gran personaje de Elena Fortún: Celia, una niña traviesa, locuaz e inteligente que compartió sus aventuras, desventuras e increíbles fantasías con un público al que intentaba desencorsetar de una sociedad y una educación con una fuerte presencia religiosa y marcadamente femenina.

On New Year’s Eve, a small, poor girl walks in the darkness and cold trying to sell her matches. Hungry and frozen, she curls up in a nook and lights her matches in search for warmth. Looking into the glow of the matches, she is transported far, far away from the hunger and the cold.