**THE SHAPE WAS A MAN.WILL GRASPED HIS LEFT ARM ANDTRIED TO HAUL HIM UP ONTO THE RIVERBANK.THE BALD HEAD, THROWN BACK, TRAILED GRAY,WISPY STRAGGLES OF HAIR.THE DEAD MOUTH HUNG OPEN,A BLACK GAP IN THE PALE BLUR OF FACE,AND THE EYES SEEMED TO BE OPEN TOO.EVEN IN THE DARKNESS I KNEW THAT TERRIBLE FACE,FOR I HAD SEEN IT EARLIER THAT DAYAS IT WRITHED IN ANGER.IT WAS THE FACE OF OLD FARMER SPEIGHT,AND...

The play’s the thing . . .To the outside world, Tom Pryne is an orphan traveling Elizabethan England with his uncle’s theater troupe. In actuality, “Tom” is Viola, in disguise because her parents’ Catholic sympathies have put them at odds with the Crown and forced them into hiding. When the troupe arrives in the sleepy little town of Stratford-on-Avon, Viola’s uncle is arrested for murder, and she joins forces with an irksome local boy, named Will Shakespeare, with...

The year is 1597. Elizabeth is queen. Shakespeare and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men are packing London’s Globe Theatre. And the severed heads of Catholic insurgents are impaled on the Tower’s gates. One 14-year-old boy should arouse no one’s interest.But within a week of his arrival, Richard Malory is robbed, beaten, and threatened at knifepoint. Someone wants him to leave London, and Richard is determined to find out why. There’s only one place he’ll be safe: as an actor on the stage...

The first enstalment of an exciting NEW series from the author of The Wyrd Museum Trilogy and The Deptford Mice.Robin Jarvis’s latest creation is a world set in an alternate past – in a genre that can only be described as Scyence Fyctione! This strangely familiar Britain consists of ninety-three individual ‘blessed isles’ floating in the deep darkness and the story begins in December in the Gloriana Kalendar, when Elizabeth Tudor has reigned for one hundred and seventy-eight years....

This collection, ‘The Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen – with Honor Appleton illustrations’ is decorated with the magnificent colour and black-and-white artwork of Honor C. Appleton. It contains some of Andersen’s best stories, including such well-known and loved tales as ‘The Little Mermaid, ‘The Steadfast Tin Soldier’, ‘The Ugly Duckling’, ‘The Snow Queen’, ‘The Little Match Girl’ and ‘The Red Shoes’. Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was a Danish poet and author celebrated for h...

This classic of American fiction belongs on every virtual bookshelf. It is a charming romance of the life and times of Edward VI., the boy king of England, and is considered by many to be Mark Twain's best work. Pronounced by high authorities one of the best child's stories ever written.

_______________'Historical fiction at its very best' - Waterstones' Guide to Kids' Books'Prolific, erudite and consistently brilliant ... breathtaking' - Guardian'Powerful, absorbing and unusual' - The Bookseller_______________An updated edition of this outstanding historical novel, in a stunning new package to celebrate the 20th anniv...

Over two million Shakespeare Shorts sold! Discover the world of Shakespeare with this collection of brilliant stories - perfect for readers of all ages.Beatrice and Benedick are perfect for each other - but they're too busy arguing to see it. Meanwhile, Claudio and Hero are happily head-over-heels in love... Will these two very different couples find their happy ending? Not if the villain Don John has anything to do with it!A wonderful retelling of this cla...

Ten-year-old Kenny (Kenji in Japanese) worships his older brother, Mickey (Mitsuo), a baseball hero whose outstanding performance on the Asahi baseball team has given him fame and popularity. Despite Kenny's suspected heart condition, he is determined to practice secretly with Mickey so he, too, can one day try out for the Asahi. But world events soon overtake life in this quiet community. When Japan attacks Pearl Harbor in 1941, everything for Kenny and his family spirals out of control: ...

Kidnapped from her home in Senegal and sold as a slave in 1761, a young girl is purchased by the wealthy Wheatley family in Boston. Phillis Wheatley—as she comes to be known—has an eager mind and it leads her on an unusual path for a slave—she becomes America’s first published black poet. “Strong characterization and perceptive realism mark this thoughtful portrayal.”—Booklist

Just over a century ago, Our Island Story entranced a nation's children by telling their history in stories. Short, simply written chapters, packed with living characters and thrilling action - and illustrated with vivid colour pictures - illuminate all the main events from Britain's earliest days to the end of Victoria's reign. And its glorious fusion of myth and legend with sober fact - Canute and King Arthur with Cromwell and the Indian Mutiny - is as seductive now as it ever was.

This love story for the ages, set in a reimagined industrial Asia, is a little dark, a bit breathless, and completely compelling. A “grisly and satisfying” tale (Publishers Weekly) inspired by The Phantom of the Opera.Sixteen-year-old Wen assists her father in his medical clinic, housed in a slaughterhouse staffed by the Noor, men hired as cheap factory labor. Wen often hears the whisper of a ghost in the slaughterhouse, a ghost who grants wishes ...