Classic English Literature For Teens

In the forest, armed men from the new settlement ventured to investigate strange lights and found three fires burning, a child at their center, tethered to a stake. The boy appeared to be white, perhaps three or four years old, unable to speak. He watched the men with the darting, fearful eyes of a wild animal and at their approach he crouched, snatched a stick from a fire, and snarled. So begins Dirk Wildlight's life in the tiny Victorian settlement of Tilmore.

It's the summer of 1993. After the death of their parents at the hands of a drunk driver, city-dwelling teenage brothers Christopher and James Janes are sent to live with their widowed grandfather in the remote Ozarks of Missouri. There, the brothers must learn to cope with the drastic turn their lives have taken and the unfamiliarity of their surroundings, as well as their grief. By some stroke of fate, there is one other person their age in the area: a girl named Kylie.

The Cossacks is one of the finest depictions of Cossack society in Russian literature. Against that primitive background, Tolstoy examines two psychological problems. The first is that of a young man who wants to love and wants to fit into society. The other is that of the difficulty of a primitive society in accepting the domination of a higher culture. This is a brilliant exploration of the themes of individuality and social identity.

Kallos Dean is an everyday, average 16-year-old until she meets the beautiful and enigmatic Hunter brothers. They soon turn her world upside down with a shocking revelation: She is a goddess. Her feelings for both Ian and Sean grow by the day, leaving her unsure of where she stands with either of them. To save her life and that of her newfound friends, Kallos must find her soul mate. This decision, however difficult, is the one thing that ties their worlds together.

Since the gripping conclusion of Once a Witch, Tamsin Greene has been haunted by her grandmother's prophecy that she will soon be forced to make a crucial decision...one so terrible that it could harm her family forever.

In the land of moss, magnolias, and bayous, ghost stories suffuse the landscape like mist on a moonlit swamp. Swamp ghosts, hot-tempered villains and tricksters once lived there, and live on today in such blood-chilling stories as the six in this collection.

In rural North Carolina, in 1951, despite parental reassurances, a typhoid shot hurt. It hurt even more when the children saw who would be administering the shot: Miss Winnie, a large, dictatorial nurse who had been "especially built by the nursing school so she would never blow away in a hard wind".

Award-winning storyteller Barbara McBride-Smith breathes life (albeit a wizened Texan version) into the old Greek myths. With her incurable Texas drawl, she spins the Greek myths as you've never heard them before, rendering them 99% more fun while retaining 100% of their original insights into the crooked ways of the human heart and the no less crooked ways of the ancient Greek gods.

Two wealthy gentlemen decide to give a poor stranger a million-pound bank note to see what he will do with it. The results are very unexpected.

Hannah killed those who destroyed her family, but the man who ordered their deaths is still alive - and in power. It's time someone worked to end Adrien's evil rule. But to find justice, Hannah needs to increase her skills. She and Sal head to the Heights for a little one-on-one training with a handsome young mystic while Ezekiel heads north to right a 40-year-old wrong. Meanwhile, Parker is stuck dealing with the mess left behind after Hannah's ass-kicking.

If the melt-down, flood, plague, the third World War, new Ice Age, Rapture, alien invasion, clamp-down, meteor, or something else entirely hit today, what would tomorrow look like? Some of the biggest names in YA and adult literature answer that very question in this short story anthology, each story exploring the lives of teen protagonists raised in catastrophe's wake - whether set in the years soon after the change, or in decades far in the future.

Returning to his home city of Bastul, Kael finds the Southern Territory of the Orudan Empire under invasion. As he races to unravel the secrecy of the enemy's identity, he becomes entangled in a brutal conspiracy to gain control of the government. After years of collaboration with the Resistance, Maeryn coordinates the covert exodus of the entire slave population of Bastul.

Gerbert was a farmer's son in an obscure town in France, but his gifts of mind and intellect were so remarkable that even in the feudal world of the tenth century, he could rise far above his station. Princes and prelates courted him; emperors called him friend and teacher. He brought the lost art of mathematics back into Europe; he was an astronomer, a musician, a builder of strange and wonderful devices. In the end he reached the pinnacle of the world, a seat so lofty and an authority so great that he answered only to God Himself. But Gerbert was more than a simple professor of the mathematical arts, or even a prince of the Church.

Seventeen-year-old Vivienne lives in a world of knights and ladies, corsets and absinthe, outlaw magic and alchemical machines. By day, she is lady-in-waiting to the future queen of Camelot - Guinevere. By night, she secretly toils away in the clock tower as apprentice to Merlin, the infamous recovering magic addict. Then she meets Marcus, below her in class, destined to become a knight, and just as forbidden as her apprenticeship with Merlin.

Danger lurks around every corner for the seemingly ordinary teen who is anything but. Many teenagers struggle to find their identity, but for Taliesin Weaver, that struggle has become life or death - and not just for him. Tal, as he prefers to be called, believes in reincarnation, and with good reason. When he turned 12, his mind was nearly shattered by a flood of memories, memories of his past lives, hundreds of them.

The chemistry between Oxford University students Evelyn Lakewood and Jared Calmburry was immediate. After uncovering their shared and magical legacy - that they are the sole descendants of Merlin and the Lady of the Lake - their connection seems fated. When Jared sacrifices himself to save Evelyn's life and is carried off by his demon nemesis, Morgana, Evelyn must marshal every ounce of courage she possesses.

Having a surfeit of super powers is great for battling bad guys and saving the world, as Jim (aka Kid Sensation) is finding out, but less useful in dealing with day-to-day situations - like bonding with his superhero father, adjusting to a team environment, and coping with what might be perceived as a growing rivalry between himself and another teen super. On top of all that, despite having a serious girlfriend, he finds himself inexplicably drawn to a new female super he's just met.

Continuing the adventure begun in The Broken Circle, Secrets of the Lost Caves starts just as the Circle of 12 is complete, but it is soon broken again and the desperate race to find the Lost Caves and unlock the Secrets of the Crystal Caverns begins. Who will discover it first? The Dark Queen and her Kindred Spirit? The party of six plus one with addled Lavender Mae as their guide? Or Aubergine, the Potluck Queen with the help of Second Sight Sierra and Trader turned Teal?

Having saved the planet and earned a place with the world's premiere superhero team, Jim (aka Kid Sensation) is preparing to attend the prestigious Academy, where teen supers from every corner of the globe learn to master their abilities. At the same time, however, he is approached by a mysterious government organization that wants Jim to work for them - and they won't take "No" for an answer. Moreover, at the Academy itself, an insidious and highly contagious virus is running amok.

When 17-year-old Daniel Nickers gains superhuman abilities, he believes his dream of becoming a superhero will finally come true. But life isn't like the comic books and the job's harder than he expected. He's constantly in mortal danger as crime in his city soars. He can't control his powers, and he's faced with criminals who act instead of giving speeches about their plans. If that weren't enough, a new supervillain named Crusher is gathering all the city's criminals together into one organization. Their first order of business is to eliminate the pesky superhero.