from the back cover: It is Molly Clarkson's fiftieth birthday. She is having a party. She is rich, but she is having a small party - only four people. Four people, however, who all need the same thing: they need her money. She will not give them the money, so they are waiting for her to die. And there are other people who are also waiting for her to die. But one person can't wait. And so, o…
from the back cover: 'It's a good place for gold,' said people in the 1840s, and they came from all over the world. 'It's a good place for a prison,' said the US government in the 1920s, and they put Al Capone there on the island of Alcatraz. 'It's a good place for love,' said the hippies in the 1960s, and they put flowers in their hair and came to Haight Ashbury. And San Francisco is still a …
from the back cover: People love and need animals. They keep them in their homes and on their farms. They enjoy going to zoos, and watching animals on films and on TV. Little children love to play with toy animals. But people are a great danger to animals too. They take their land, and cut down the trees where animals have their homes. They pollute the rivers and seas, and kill big animals …
More than 20 million visitors come to Scotland each year. Some love it for its long white beaches and quiet green hills. Some like the busy cities, with their shops and museums, castles and parks. Others come to see the home of their parents and grandparents, to hear Scottish music, to find their family tartan. And some come to visit the whisky distilleries, eat wonderful food, and go to one of…
from the back cover: Conradin is ten years old. He lives alone with his aunt. He has two big secrets. The first is that he hates his aunt. The second is that he keeps a small, wild animal in the garden shed. The animal has sharp, white teeth, and it loves fresh blood. Every night, Conradin prays to this animal and asks it to do one thing for him, just one thing. This collection of short stor…
from the back cover: If you wake up in the night and hear a tap running somewhere in the house, what do you do? You get up, of course, and go and turn the tap off. A little later you hear the tap running again. You are alone in the house, and you know you turned the tap off. What do you do then? The ghosts in these stories all have unfinished business with the living world. They come back f…
from the back cover: The United States in the 1950s and 60s was a troubled place. Black people were angry, because they did not have the same rights as whites. It was a time of angry words, of marches, of protests, a time of bombs and killings. But above the angry noise came the voice of one man - a man of peace. 'I have a dream,' said Martin Luther King, and it was a dream of blacks and wh…