Literature

Fifteen-year-old Charles Wallace Murry, (whom readers were introduced to in A Wrinkle in Time) has a little task he must accomplish. In 24 hours, a mad dictator will destroy the universe by declaring nuclear war--unless Charles Wallace can go back in time to change one of the many Might-Have-Beens in history. In an intricately layered and suspenseful journey through time, this extraordinary young man psychically enters four different people from other eras. As he perceives through their eyes "what might have been," he begins to comprehend the cosmic significance and consequences of every living creature's actions. As he witnesses first-hand the transformation of civilization from peaceful to warring times, his very existence is threatened, but the alternative is far worse. Reading level ages 9-12. Paperback. Learn More

With his sublime parting words, "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done…" Sidney Carton joins that exhalted group of Dickensian characters who have earned a permanent place in the popular literary imagination. His dramatic story, set against the volcanic fury of the French Revolution and pervaded by the ominous rumble of the death carts trundling toward the guillotine, is the heart-stirring tale of a heroic soul in an age gone mad. A masterful pageant of idealism, love, and adventure — in a Paris bursting with revolutionary frenzy, and a London alive with anxious anticipation — A Tale of Two Cities is one of Dickens’s most energetic and exciting works. Paperback. 400 pages. Learn More

This reproducible study guide is recommended for grades 9th-12th. Suggested activities include comprehension questions, vocabulary, author and background information and more. Biblical references included. Learn More

A Taste of Blackberries, written by Doris Buchanan Smith, is narrated by a young boy who is keenly aware of all the events that swirl around him. His is an innocent voice struggling with the fact of his best friend's death, yet, it is through his eyes that the reader bears witness to Jamie's tragedy, the grieving of Jamie's mother, and his funeral that follows. Charles Robinson's simple illustrations capture the loneliness and confusion expressed by the narrator with haunting precision. This is a book that speaks frankly of death and yet with enough care to help the reader understand the grief it causes. Grades 3-5 Learn More

Tree Is Nice is a classic tale about the beauty of the everyday world. "Simont's watercolors perfectly complement the poetic simplicity of the text, allowing the reader room to engage in his or her own imaginative embroiderings about trees" (Children's Books and Their Creators). Trees are beautiful. They fill up the sky. If you have a tree, you can climb up its trunk, roll in its leaves, or hang a swing from one of its limbs. Cows and babies can nap in the shade of a tree. Birds can make nests in the branches. A tree is good to have around. A tree is nice. 32 pages. Ages 4-8. Learn More

Travel to a faraway planet and discover what's in store for Meg Murry and her friends. Students will analyze the life lessons that Meg must learn on her dangerous journey to find her father. A Wrinkle in Time: An Instructional Guide for Literature supports the instruction of the Newbery Medal-winning book by Madeleine L'Engle. These rigorous, cross-curricular lessons and activities work in conjunction with the fictional text to teach students how to comprehend complex literature, and help them understand the significance of the story. This resource supports this classic children's novel, and is packed with tools to teach students how to analyze story elements in multiple ways, practice close reading and text-based vocabulary, determine meaning through text-dependent questions, and more. Add rigor to your students' explorations of rich, complex literature with this language arts resource.

Grades 4-8

From Teacher Created Materials

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Part of the Childhood of Famous Americans fictionalized biography series. One of the most popular series ever published for young Americans, these classics have been praised alike by parents, teachers, and librarians. With these lively, inspiring, fictionalized biographies - easily read by children 8 and up - today's youngster is swept right into history. Paperback. ages 8-12. 192 pages. Learn More

Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray #4221 is a Newbery Medal-winning adventure set in medieval England. Adam is a young boy who travels the roads of England with his father, a minstrel, and his dog, Nick. However, one day Adam’s dog is stolen, and his father vanishes. Alone, Adam wanders the roads he once traveled with his father searching for him. Along his journey through villages, markets, and fairs, Adam meets many different kinds of people and has many adventures. The Adam of the Road Teacher Guide contains all answers to the Adam of the Road Student Study Guide #4414 as well as all quizzes and tests. .

The Adam of the Road Teacher Guide features teaching guidelines, notes on reading activities, lessons for the 23 chapters of Adam of the Road including answers to the Adam of the Road Student Study Guide, all tests and quizzes, and the key to all assessments.

99 pages, paperback. Grade 6

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Follow the journey of this mischievious boy as he travels down the Mississippi River. This classic by Mark Twain is enjoyed by all ages. Learn More

Alfred Church’s retelling of Virgil’s Aeneid is a great introduction to Aeneas, who escaped from the burning city of Troy and founded Rome. After reading this novel, students will have a good grasp on the characters and story of the Aeneid and be ready to tackle the more difficult prose in Virgil. Grades 6-8 Learn More

There are three works that are at the source of Western culture: the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid. After you have completed your study of Homer’s two works, Virgil’s epic story of the founding of Rome, the Aeneid, is your next logical Great Book to study.

The Student Guide includes Places & Characters To Know, Comprehension Questions, important Quotations, and Discussion Questions.

56 pages

Non-religious

Teacher Guide also available #8904 Learn More

There are three works that are at the source of Western culture: the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid. After you have completed your study of Homer’s two works, Virgil’s epic story of the founding of Rome, the Aeneid, is your next logical Great Book to study.

The Teacher Guide provides answers to the Comprehension and Discussion Questions, Chapter Summaries, Drill Exercises, and Quizzes and Tests.

Non-religious

Student Guide sold separately #8903. Learn More

Al Capone Does My Shirts By GENNIFER CHOLDENKO.

The Newbery Honor Book and New York Times Bestseller that is historical fiction with a hint of mystery about living at Alcatraz not as a prisoner, but as a kid meeting some of the most famous criminals in our history.

Al Capone Does My Shirts has become an instant classic for all kids to read!

Today I moved to Alcatraz, a twelve-acre rock covered with cement, topped with bird turd and surrounded by water. I’m not the only kid who lives here. There are twenty-three other kids who live on the island because their dads work as guards or cooks or doctors or electricians for the prison, like my dad does. And then there are a ton of murderers, rapists, hit men, con men, stickup men, embezzlers, connivers, burglars, kidnappers and maybe even an innocent man or two, though I doubt it. The convicts we have are the kind other prisons don’t want. I never knew prisons could be picky, but I guess they can. You get to Alcatraz by being the worst of the worst. Unless you’re me. I came here because my mother said I had to.

Paperback | Published by Puffin Books Apr 20, 2006 | 288 Pages | 5-1/16 x 7-3/4 | Middle Grade (10 and up)

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Al Capone Shines My Shoes By GENNIFER CHOLDENKO.What do you do when your neighbors are a bunch of hit men, con men, and mad dog murderers? Well, if you’re Moose Flanagan, you ask the most notorious convict of them all, Al Capone, for help. But when that convict comes through for youÑand then asks you for a favor in returnÑsuddenly it’s a whole different ball game. Picking up where the NewberyÐHonor winning Al Capone Does My Shirts (#8723) left off, this lively second romp featuring Moose, his friends, and some of Alcatraz’s “finest” is just as satisfying as the first.Paperback | Published by Puffin Books Jan 25, 2011 | 304 Pages | 5-1/16 x 7-3/4 | Middle Grade (10 and up) Learn More

Some may just want to read Alice in Wonderland for the madness of it all, but if you are really brave and want to jump into the rabbit hole with Alice, you need this guide. In it you will find practical questions and, in a very un-Wonderland way, helpful answers—often including additional background information to help the student better understand the context of the story. Full of comprehension worksheets and fun projects to enrich the book. Any 3rd grader can join in this adventure. Learn More

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland By LEWIS CARROLL Introduction by Chris Riddell.

They’re Puffin Classics for a reason, it’s because they’re the best.

Follow Alice down the rabbit hole in this topsy turvy adventure! On an ordinary summer’s afternoon, Alice tumbles down a hole and an extraordinary adventure begins. In a strange world with even stranger characters, she meets a rabbit with a pocket watch, joins a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, and plays croquet with the Queen! Lost in this fantasy land, Alice finds herself growing more and more curious by the minute . . .

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All Quiet on the Western Front A NOVEL By ERICH MARIA REMARQUE Translated by Arthur Wesley Wheen.

Considered by many the greatest war novel of all time, All Quiet on the Western Front is Erich Maria Remarque’s masterpiece of the German experience during World War I.

I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. . . . This is the testament of Paul Bäumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army during World War I. They become soldiers with youthful enthusiasm. But the world of duty, culture, and progress they had been taught breaks in pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches. Through years of vivid horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principle of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against one another . . . if only he can come out of the war alive.

Mass Market Paperback |  Published by Ballantine Books Mar 12, 1987 | 304 Pages | 4-3/16 x 6-7/8

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Part of the Childhood of Famous Americans fictionalized biography series. One of the most popular series ever published for young Americans, these classics have been praised alike by parents, teachers, and librarians. With these lively, inspiring, fictionalized biographies - easily read by children 8 and up - today's youngster is swept right into history. Paperback. ages 8-12. 270 pages. Learn More

Ride across Texas on a mountain lion with Pecos Bill, work up a giant appetite with the mighty lumberjack Paul Bunyan, spread happiness with Johnny Appleseed, and confront the Fastest Draw in the West!

Read these wild tales–and then act them out yourself! This beautifully illustrated Companion Reader is an exact transcript of Jim Weiss’s award-winning storytelling performance of three classic American stories and one original tall tale, available on audio CD #2082.

The Reader can be enjoyed on its own, or used along with the recorded performance to build strong language skills.

Listen to the Jim Weiss stories, read along to improve fluency, vocabulary, and grammar, and then speak great words and sentences out loud by practicing and performing the short, accessible dramatic versions of Jim’s performances (including a stage play, a puppet show, and a dramatic monologue).

Ages 5 and up

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When Amos Fortune was only fifteen years old, he was captured by slave traders and brought to Massachusetts, where he was sold at auction. Although his freedom had been taken, Amos never lost his dignity and courage. For 45 years, Amos worked as a slave and dreamed of freedom. And, at age 60, he finally began to see those dreams come true. A Newbury Honor Book

Ages 8-12 and up

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Animal Farm By GEORGE ORWELL

George Orwell’s timeless fable—a parable for would-be liberators everywhere, glimpsed through the lens of our own history. As ferociously fresh as it was more than a half century ago, this remarkable allegory of a downtrodden society of overworked, mistreated animals, and their quest to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality is one of the most scathing satires ever published. As we witness the rise and bloody fall of the revolutionary animals, we begin to recognize the seeds of totalitarianism in the most idealistic organization; and in our most charismatic leaders, the souls of our cruelest oppressors.

With a foreword by Ann Patchett

Paperback

 128 Pages | 5-7/16 x 8

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A collection of classic stories featuring a host of much-loved animal characters in a beautifully illustrated story book, perfect for sharing with children at bedtime.

How did the elephant get its trunk? Can three little pigs escape from the big, bad wolf? And is the sky really falling on Chicken Licken?

Includes well-known folktales from around the world.

With a clothbound spine and ribbon marker, this luxury edition makes a lovely gift to be shared together time and time again.

Age 3 years and up                 Publisher: Usborne

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A delightfully illustrated book of animal stories from around the world, specially selected and retold for younger children. Contains five classic stories: The Fox and the Tiger, Chicken Licken, Why the Zebra Has Stripes, The Greedy Dog, and The Brave Little Hare. Learn More

Join the animals in this village as they dance, sing, and play. Recurring characters, locations, and props encourage linking the cards in endless combinations for fresh, new stories every time it's played. Use this beautifully illustrated visual card set by Stephanie Graegin to create your own stories! Can be played individually or in a group, make up your own way to play!

Features:

For ages 3 and up

36 cards - instructions included

Cards are 3.75" x 4.75"

Winner of the Oppenheim Gold Award

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