Showing results by author "Jennifer Bassett - adaptation" in All Categories

William Shakespeare. Born April 1564, at Stratford-upon-Avon. Died April 1616. Married Anne Hathaway: two daughters, one son. Actor, poet, famous playwright. Wrote nearly forty plays. But what was he like as a man? What did he think about when he rode into London for the first time... or when he was writing his plays Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet... or when his only son died? We know the facts of his life, but we can only guess at his hopes, his fears, his dreams.

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.

Life is always hard for the poor, in any place and at any time. Ethan Frome is a farmer in Massachusetts. He works long hours every day, but his farm makes very little money. His wife, Zeena, is a thin, grey woman, always complaining, and only interested in her own ill health. Then Mattie Silver, a young cousin, comes to live with the Fromes, to help Zeena and do the housework. Her bright smile and laughing voice bring light and hope into the Fromes’ house - and into Ethan’s lonely life.

Tony Kytes is a favourite with the girls but he’s not terribly clever. If you meet an old girlfriend and she asks for a ride home in your wagon, do you say yes? And then if you meet the girl you are planning to marry, what do you do? Very soon, Tony is in a great muddle, and does not know how to escape from it. These stories are set in an English country village of the nineteenth century, but Hardy’s tales of mistakes and muddles and marriages belong in any place, at any time.

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 that he will never forget.

When a large plane is hijacked, the Prime Minister looks at the list of passengers and suddenly becomes very, very frightened. There is a name on the list that the Prime Minister knows very well - too well. There is someone on that plane who will soon be dead - if the hijackers can find out who he is! And there isn’t much time. One man lies dead on the runway. In a few minutes the hijackers will use their guns again. And the Prime Minister knows who they are going to kill.

I wish I could get through into looking-glass house,’ Alice said. ’Let’s pretend that the glass has gone soft and . . . Why, I do believe it has! It’s turning into a kind of cloud!’ A moment later Alice is inside the looking-glass world. There she finds herself part of a great game of chess, travelling through forests and jumping across brooks. The chess pieces talk and argue with her, give orders and repeat poems . . .It is the strangest dream that anyone ever had...

Adapted from the classic by Lewis Carroll.... There, on top of the mushroom, was a large caterpillar, smoking a pipe. After a while the Caterpillar took the pipe out of its mouth and said to Alice in a slow, sleepy voice, "Who are you?" What strange things happen when Alice falls down the rabbit-hole and into Wonderland! She has conversations with the Caterpillar and the Cheshire Cat, goes to the Mad Hatter’s tea party, and plays croquet with the King and Queen of Hearts.

Soon I felt something alive moving along my leg and up my body to my face, and when I looked down, I saw a very small human being, only 15 centimetres tall . . . I was so surprised that I gave a great shout. ’But that is only the first of many surprises which Gulliver has on his travels. He visits a land of giants and a flying island, meets ghosts from the past and horses which talk. An Oxford Bookworms Library reader for learners of English, adapted from the Jonathan Swift original by Clare West.

I often walked along the shore, and one day I saw something in the sand. I went over to look at it more carefully . . . It was a footprint – the footprint of a man!’In 1659 Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked on a small island off the coast of South America. After fifteen years alone, he suddenly learns that there is another person on the island. But will this man be a friend – or an enemy?

Dartmoor. A wild, wet place in the south-west of England. A place where it is easy to get lost, and to fall into the soft green earth which can pull the strongest man down to his death. A man is running for his life. Behind him comes an enormous dog - a dog from his worst dreams, a dog from hell. Between him and a terrible death stands only one person - the greatest detective of all time, Sherlock Holmes.

I turned on the light, but there was nobody there. Then I saw something in the corner that made my blood turn cold. Scudder was lying on his back. There was a long knife through his heart, pinning him to the floor.’ Soon Richard Hannay is running for his life across the hills of Scotland. The police are chasing him for a murder he did not do, and another, more dangerous enemy is chasing him as well - the mysterious ’Black Stone’. Who are these people? And why do they want Hannay dead?

Adapted from the Arthur Conan Doyle story "Silver Blaze".... Horseracing is the sport of kings, perhaps because racehorses are very expensive animals. But when they win races, they can make a lot of money too - money for the owners, for the trainers, and for the people who put bets on them to win.Silver Blaze is a young horse, but already the winner of many races. One night he disappears from his stables, and someone kills his trainer.

The room was on the fourth floor, and the door was locked - with the key on the inside. The windows were closed and fastened - on the inside. The chimney was too narrow for a cat to get through. So how did the murderer escape? And whose were the two angry voices heard by the neighbours as they ran up the stairs? Nobody in Paris could find any answers to this mystery.Except Auguste Dupin, who could see further and think more clearly than other people.

In the mountains of Transylvania there stands a castle. It is the home of Count Dracula – a dark, lonely place, and at night the wolves howl around the walls. In the year 1875 Jonathan Harker comes from England to do business with the Count. But Jonathan does not feel comfortable at Castle Dracula. Strange things happen at night, and very soon, he begins to feel afraid. And he is right to be afraid, because Count Dracula is one of the Un-Dead – a vampire that drinks the blood of living people.