Showing results by narrator "Cindy Hardin" in All Categories

The 5th volume of Great Sci-Fi Stories includes stories by Lester Del Ray, Robert Silverberg, Harry Harrison, and others.

A king, a queen, a baby's christening, an overlooked guest and a curse. Author George McDonald takes the classic motiff and turns it on it's ear when the newborn princess loses....her gravity!

My Ántonia tells the stories of several immigrant families who move out to rural Nebraska to start new lives in America, with a particular focus on a Bohemian family, the Shimerdas, whose eldest daughter is named Ántonia. The book's narrator, Jim Burden, arrives in the fictional town of Black Hawk, Nebraska, on the same train as the Shimerdas, as he travels to live with his grandparents after his parents have died.

Here's Anderson's wonderful story of the power of persuasion.

O. Henry wrote many stories, but this, the story of two "ultimate gifts", is his most famous.

This is a selection from The Jungle Book, in which a mongoose saves the day.

In this delightful tale, three animals who have been cast out by their masters, a dog, a cat, a rooster and a donkey decide to form a musical group together.Their first "concert" turns out to be not what they expeced when they run into a gang of criminals.

Angelina Turner would heartily agree with Dicken's Ebenezer Scrooge that Christmas is a "humbug". She is estranged from her family and doesn't think much of the holiday so she decides to test her theory that there is no such thing as the "Christmas spirit". But unlike Dicken's character. who needed three visitors to change his mind, Miss Turner only needs a Christmas Angel to show her "the rest of the story" and bring us all to a happy ending and a changed heart.

In this story, an old witch takes pity on a poor soldier and gives him a box with remarkable powers. As a result, he has many astounding adventures.

"Goody Two Shoes", published by an anonymous author in 1765, has long been one of the most popular children's stories ever written. It is the kind of story your grandmother might have told, and its message of optimism, bravery, and the rewards of honestyare giving it new popularity today.

Hester Prynne commits adultery in a Puritan settlement and, as a result, is "branded" for the rest of her life by having to wear a scarlet letter "A" on her breast. Throughout the story, a complex relationship develops between Hester, her lover, her husband, and her daughter.

This is a selection from Kipling's The Second Jungle Book.

Here is another of O. Henry's entertaining "surprise ending" stories. A girl moves to the city looking for a friend she had lost track of and finds him in a very unusual way.

Everyone knows about Santa Claus of course and his wonderful trip around the world on the night before Christmas. But what about his early life? Where was he born? What was he like as a youth? How did he come to be such a wonderful toymaker? When did he start using the Reindeer? And, most importantly, how has he been able to live so very long?

Up until recently, Freeman has been known primarily as a "feminist" writer, for her classic stories like "A New England Nun", and "The Revolt of Mother". However, she also wrote many well crafted supernatural stories which have only recently begun to attract appreciative critical attention. These stories combine pragmatism and supernaturalism and are very much in the tradition of an "Americanized" Gothic.

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman is known primarily as a "feminist" and "local color" writer, for such classic tales as "The Revolt of Mother". She wrote very entertaining stories that included clear depictions of the pressures that often silenced or devalued women and their concerns. This famous story gets that message across but not without a bit of humor.

"O. Henry" is the pen name of American writer William Sydney Porter whose short stories are known for their wit, warm characterization and clever, unexpected endings. The Princess and the Puma is one of porter's best, and most anthologized stories.

This is the first story of The Jungle Book, in which the reader is introduced to Mowgli, the jungle boy, and his animal friends.

The story concerns a scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who conducts a great experiment to see if he can create a living being from the body parts of corpses. Only whe the experiment is successful does he begin to think of the ethics and consequences of what he has done. The creature he created becomes embittered when he finds that no one will love him becuase of his appearance.

O. Henry is know as the master of the "surprise ending" short story. In this story two young lovers quarrel. As a result, the young man accepts a post in a far away obscure country he calls The Land of the Lotus. He finally begins to accept the fact that he will never see the love of his life again when a mysterious bottle washes up on shore and the result is a very unusual surprise ending - even for O. Henry.