from the back cover: 'Who is the man with the roses in his hand?' thinks Anna. 'I want to meet him.' 'Who is the girl with the guitar?' thinks Will. 'I like her. I want to meet her.' But they do not meet. 'There are lots of men!' says Anna's friend Vicki, but Anna cannot forget Will. And then one rainy day . . .
from the back cover: 'There's a new girl in town,' says Joe, and soon Steve is out looking for her. Marietta is easy to find in a small town, but every time he sees her something goes wrong . . . and his day goes from bad to worse.
from the back cover: Sally is always running - and she has her phone with her all the time: at home, on the train, at work, at lunchtime, and at the shops. But then one afternoon suddenly she has a different phone . . . and it changes her life.
from the back cover: The African Queen is an old, dirty, ugly, unreliable steamboat. No one would expect a missionary's sister and a rough, uneducated mechanic to take a boat like that down a dangerous river through the forests of Central Africa. But Rose Sayer and Charlie Allnutt do just that. Why do they do it? The First World War has just begun, and Rose has a wild and crazy plan. She and …
from the back cover: In 1944 Henry Tillotson brings his new wife, Margaret, home to his farmhouse in the English countryside. Margaret is a strange, unpleasant woman, determined, it seems, to make Henry's life miserable. 'Poor Henry!' say his friends, as they visit at weekends and holidays. 'What an awful life he has!' But Henry is not at all the sad and disappointed man we might expect him to…
from the back cover: One winter's day in 1673 young John Ridd is riding home from school, across the wild lonely hills of Exmoor. He has to pass Doone valley - a dangerous place, as the Doones are famous robbers and murderers. All Exmoor lives in fear of the Doones. At home there is sad news waiting for young John, and he learns that he has good reason to hate the Doones. But in the years t…
from the back cover: When Black Beauty is trained to carry a rider on his back, or to pull a carriage behind him, he finds it hard at first. But he is lucky - his first home is a good one, where his owners are kind people, who would never be cruel to a horse. But in the nineteenth century many people were cruel to their horses, whipping them and beating them, and using them like machines un…
from the back cover: Christmas is humbug, Scrooge says - just a time when you find yourself a year older and not a penny richer. The only thing that matters to Scrooge is business, and making money. But on Christmas Eve three spirits come to visit him. They take him travelling on the wings of the night to see the shadows of Christmas past, present, and future - and Scrooge learns a lesson t…
from the back cover: Every town should have a 'card' - someone who gets talked about, someone who does mad and wonderful things, someone who makes you laugh. Bursley in the Five Towns has a 'card': Edward Henry Machin (Denry for short). Denry begins life in a poor little house where the rent is twenty-three pence a week. But before he's thirty, he's made a lot of money, and had more adventu…
from the back cover: Victor Frankenstein thinks he has found the secret of life. He takes parts from dead people and builds a new 'man'. But this monster is so big and frightening that everyone runs away from him - even Frankenstein himself! The monster is like an enormous baby who needs love. But nobody gives him love, and soon he learns to hate. And, because he is so strong, the next thin…