Family Life Classics

The time is mid-1970 in back country called Whisker Ridge. Eleven-year-old Meg Nightly runs away into Fennel Forest to escape her grieving father's abuses. When she gets lost, she experiences a magical awakening. But her father goes on the hunt for Meg, to bring her back. Will he prevail or will he succumb to the woods? Way of the Wild Wood is a story of love lost, redemption, and faith.

Hiding is Roo Fanshaw's special skill. Living in a frighteningly unstable family, she often needs to disappear at a moment's notice. When her parents are murdered, it's her special hiding place under the trailer that saves her life. As it turns out, Roo, much to her surprise, has a wealthy if eccentric uncle, who has agreed to take her into his home on Cough Rock Island. Once a tuberculosis sanitarium for children of the rich, the strange house is teeming with ghost stories and secrets. Roo doesn't believe in ghosts or fairy stories, but what are those eerie noises she keeps hearing?

Caje Amis and his father are mountain folk, they live off the land and have few interactions with more sophisticated people. But at the onset of an especially harsh winter, the two take shelter with distant relatives. The adjustment to their new life is an easy one for Caje, but impossible for his father, and the elder Amis ends up abandoning his son and vanishing into the cold!

In the early years of our country, a poor school teacher, Justin Morgan, receives a horse and her tiny colt in payment for some work. He wishes he had been given money instead. Hoping that he might sell both horses for a fair price, he asks his student, Joel, to break in the colt. To his surprise, young Joel soon discovers that this small, brown creature has special abilities: "Bub" can pull more than a team of oxen, and he can run faster than a racehorse.

Maggie and Tom, brother and sister, try to save their livelihood as their parents flounder in the face of modernization. Maggie befriends the disabled son of a family rival in an attempt to build bridges, and Tom fights hard to reclaim the family property. Having drifted apart, they are brought back together in the novel's dramatic and moving conclusion.

Chris Brabson hates the Union troops. Yankee riders in the Tennessee mountains have stolen his family's newly harvested crops and their only horse. In spite of this, Chris' brother joins the Union army, and his parents refuse to take either side. But Chris has no doubts, he would fight for the Confederacy. The Perilous Road, a Newbery Honor book, powerfully illustrates the senseless waste of war and the true meaning of courage and tolerance.

Ethan Frome is a lonely farmer trying to make a living while also tending to his frigid, demanding and ungrateful wife Zeena. Hope enters Ethan's life of despair when his wife's cousin Mattie arrives to help. His life is transformed as he falls in love Mattie but their fate is doomed by the oppressive principles of that era.

If your best friend is named Huckleberry Finn, and there's a girl in your life named Becky Thatcher, a villain named Injun Joe, and you and your friends get into all kinds of mischief and adventures, then you must be that ever-lovin' charmer from Missouri, Tom Sawyer!

The Glass Menagerie is a memory play by Tennessee Williams that premiered in 1944 and catapulted Williams from obscurity to fame. The play has strong autobiographical elements, featuring characters based on its author, his histrionic mother, and his mentally fragile sister, Laura.

Eben war ein großer Reisewagen am Hause des Arztes vorübergefahren, worin ganz allein eine schwarze Frau saß. Die Doktorskinder standen alle vier im Garten und schauten still dem Wagen nach, denn sie empfanden, wie traurig diese Reise sein musste. Die Tante stand oben am Fenster und schaute mit ihnen dem Wagen nach. Als er unten um die Ecke verschwunden war, winkte sie dem Fred, heraufzukommen; sie stand in seinem Zimmer.

Mr. Watson is a widowed and ailing clergyman with two sons and four daughters. The youngest daughter, Emma, the heroine of the story, has been brought up by a wealthy aunt and is consequently better educated and more refined than her sisters. But after her aunt contracted a foolish second marriage, Emma has been obliged to return to her father's house. There she is chagrined by the crude and reckless husband-hunting of two of her sisters, Penelope and Margaret.

Sometimes, the right perspective and the right question can make all the difference. When pursuing a dream or any type of creative work, it is easy to get stuck. What if your future self (who had already successfully completed the work) was there to guide you? Would that make a difference in how you view your current challenges, the questions you ask yourself, and the fears you are willing to face?

"The Test" is a short, powerful piece that describes a day in the life of a woman, whose past comes to haunt her just as she thinks she is settled and perfectly safe in her life. Faced with memories of long ago as well as considerations and responsibilities of today, she must make a difficult choice she knows will change her life and affect the lives of those around her.

Second star to the right and straight on until morning...that's one way to get to Neverneverland. The other is through this unique full-cast performance, presented in exciting Radio Theatre style.

Little Mary Lennox is a bad-tempered, disagreeable child. When her parents die in India, she is sent back to England to live with her uncle in a big, lonely, old house. There is nothing to do all day except walk in the gardens – and watch the robin flying over the high walls of the secret garden . . . which has been locked for ten years. And no one has the key. An Oxford Bookworms Library reader for learners of English, adapted from the Frances Hodgson Burnett original by Clare West.

In Bullerbü zu leben ist das Allerschönste auf der Welt, findet Lisa. Im ganzen Dorf gibt es nur drei Höfe, und Lisa, Lasse, Bosse, Inga, Britta und Ole spielen von früh bis spät. Die besten Tage sind natürlich, wenn Weihnachten ist und man Geburtstag hat. Aber auch sonst ist immer was los. Auf dem Heuboden schlafen, sich verkleiden, Großvater vorlesen und Hütten bauen macht in Bullerbü riesigen Spaß.

One of American literature's most loved novels, this is a story of family, of hope, of dreams, and of growing up as four devoted sisters search for romance and find maturity in the Civil War-era 19th century New England.

Deus oferece um presente para todos os recém-nascidos — esse presente não é deixado no berço, mas em um lugar secreto, onde ninguém pensaria em olhar. Esse presente pode ser encontrado em muitos lugares, até em um simples galho.

"Le Vilain Petit Canard" (1842) raconte l'histoire d'un caneton rejeté de tous, y compris de sa famille, à cause de son physique différent. Fatigué des moqueries, il décide de partir loin, très loin, mais les personnages qu'il rencontre en chemin ne sont pas plus tolérants... Hans Christian Andersen naquît en 1805 à Odense au Danemark. Fils de cordonnier, il partit à quatorze ans pour Copenhague suivant la mort de son père. Et c'est là que la célèbre histoire commence. Au cours de sa vie, Andersen écrivit plus de 150 contes.

A Christmas Carol is undoubtedly the most famous supernatural story in English. However, it was not the only supernatural story of the season that Charles Dickens wrote. In Victorian England, Christmas was the time to explore the supernatural in stories, and Charles Dickens was one of the best at it. Included in this volume are a full-cast dramatization of A Christmas Carol, plus three more of Dickens' best stories of the season.