Showing results by narrator "Joan Walker" in All Categories

Collins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners. Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time in any language. Now Collins has adapted her famous detective novels for English language learners. These carefully abridged versions are shorter, with the language targeted at learners of English.

The third action-packed quest in an exciting new six book character-led series for 7+ girls who love fantasy, adventure, and high-kicking heroines! On her tenth birthday, tomboy Sophie learns she is the Guardian of a magic gateway between our world and the Shadow Woods. She must keep the human world safe from mischievous goblins, sprites and elves. Each book sees Sophie having to outwit weird and terrifying creatures from the Shadow Woods, starting with the gruesome Goblins!

Amber Whittington-Jones is dying. In her last days she begins to write down her story in an attempt to make sense of her life, to explain to herself, and the one person who still might understand, why she made her choices. But for all her insight, Amber cannot foresee the events that are about to unfold, events that will once again bring her family to its knees and force the past out into the light.

It's 1939 and little Dot May Dun is playing with her brothers in the quiet lanes of their Derbyshire village. The grown-ups' talk of war means very little to Dot but things are starting to change in the village, for good. When a prisoner of war camp is built close to Dot's village, and a Yankee base is stationed nearby, Dot makes friends with the most unlikely of soldiers. But her friendships are threatened when telegrams start to arrive in the village and the real impact of war bears heavily on this close-knit mining community.

Can you remember how photosynthesis works? Well, what about quadratic equations? Or the names of all the Bennet sisters in Pride and Prejudice? How about Henry VIII’s wives, conjunctions, inertia, the continents of the world and the Seven Deadly Sins? And what on earth is the point of pi? Let’s face it, there are an awful lot of half-remembered things floating around in our heads.

When little Ella's grandmother dies, she is turned out of her home and forced into a life of cruel labour. Even her own mother won't help, too busy with her new husband. Seeking refuge at the Foundling School for Girls, Ella meets Julia, who has been torn apart from her twin, Ned. They must take matters into their own hands if they're to stay together despite their parents' wishes. In a world of hardship and betrayal, three children begin a search for belonging.

An orphan poses nervously for a Renaissance maestro in medieval Siena, and an artist's servant girl in seventeenth-century Amsterdam snatches a moment away from her work to lose herself in tales of knights and battles. In a Victorian photography studio, a woman holds a book that she barely acknowledges while she waits for the exposure, and in a Shoreditch bar in 2008 a woman reading catches the eye of a young man who takes her picture.

Very few people ever enter the Shadow Woods, for these woods are like no others. Hidden deep within them is the Gateway to the Shadow Realm - a dark and chaotic world where all kinds of gruesome creatures live.... On her 10th birthday, tomboy Sophie learns she is the Guardian of the magical gateway and that her destiny is to protect the human world from the goblins, trolls and evil sprites that inhabit the Shadow Woods.

In "The Tale of Ginger and Pickles", a yellow tomcat and a terrier are shopkeepers in a small village. Though the mice customers make Ginger the cat's mouth water and Pickles the dog finds his rabbit shoppers faintly enticing, the two control their impulses and even extend credit to their customers. But how long can this combination last?

In The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck, a farmer's wife believes ducks make poor sitters and takes their eggs to give to her hens to hatch them. The duck Jemima decides to find a safe place away from the farm to lay her eggs. When a fox offers to help, Jemima must keep her guard up. The 12th of Beatrix Potter's 22 charmingly illustrated tales of animals in amusing situations, The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck has children and adults alike since its release in 1907.

In The Tale of Two Bad Mice, two mice, upset at learning the food in a dollhouse is fake, go on a vandalism spree. When the little girl who owns the dollhouse sees the destruction, she puts a policeman doll outside the doll house to prevent any more vandalism. To make up for their nefarious deeds, the two mice put a crooked sixpence in the doll's stocking on Christmas Eve and tidy up the house with a dust-pan and broom. The fifth of Beatrix Potter's 22 charming tales of animals in amusing situations, The Tale of Two Bad Mice has delighted children since its release in 1904.

Ever since she was a child, Alice Vernon has slept strangely. From episodes of sleepwalking to hallucinations of sinister figures in her bedroom, her nights are often eventful and sometimes frightening. She's not the only one. Drawing on scientific, historical and literary sources, as well as her own experiences, sleep historian Vernon explores the history of our relationship with bad dreams and how we've tried to make sense of and treat them. Night Terrors aims to shine a light on the darkest parts of our sleeping lives.

The Somme, 1916. James Falconer, once a barrow boy on a London market, stands in the trenches, awaiting the command to go over the top. Away from his business empire in London, he is simply a soldier, war the great leveller. But, unlike his men, and unknown to them, deep down, Falconer doesn’t care if he lives or dies. When a face from the past offers James the chance to repair his fractured relationship with his estranged daughter, Leonie, he must decide if he can hold different things dear – and make space in his life for love.

Three German women are haunted by the past and their secrets in the devastating aftermath of WWII. A mesmerising story of resistance, forgiveness and the complexity of the human heart. A resistance widow. A silent co-conspirator. The only one who survived. Bavaria, Germany. June, 1945. The Third Reich has crumbled. The Russians are coming. Can Marianne von Lingenfels and the women in her care survive and build their ravaged world anew?

Recently widowed Venetia Hamilton Hargreaves is left with a huge house, a bank balance to match and an uneasy feeling that she's been sleepwalking through the last fifty years. Determined to live fully again, she embraces life with an enthusiasm and purpose she'd forgotten she could muster. Buying the dilapidated Phoenix Ballroom and with it a drop-in centre and spiritualist church could be seen as reckless, but Venetia's generosity, courage and kindness provide a refuge for a touching cast of damaged and lonely people who find their chosen family.

Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes includes well-known nursery rhymes such as "Goosey Goosey Gander", "This Little Piggy", and "Three Blind Mice", rewritten to refer to Beatrix Potter's own recurring characters. Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes has delighted children and adults alike since its release in 1922.

Agatha Christie, in London to visit her agent, boards a train preoccupied with the knowledge that her husband Archie is having an affair. She feels a touch on her back, loses her balance but is pulled to safety from the rush of the incoming train. So begins a sequence of terrifying events. Her rescuer is no guardian angel but a blackmailer, and Agatha must use every ounce of her cleverness to thwart an adversary determined to exploit her genius for murder to kill on his behalf.

The Shrigley Abduction is a compelling narrative, a story of deception and the lure of 'high society', with a strong Byronic character at its heart. Wakefield was sentenced to three years in Newgate, an experience which profoundly affected him. Upon his release he founded the New Zealand Company and became principally responsible for the colonisation of that country, where he is now a prominent figure. Ellen, on the other hand, died in childbirth at the age of 19.

In "The Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan", Ribby, a cat, invites a little dog called Duchess to tea. Duchess accepts the invitation but is anxious that she will be served mouse. When Duchess switches pies in Ribby's oven before tea, confusion ensues.

How long do you hunt for the missing? A horrible vanishing act.... When a young Josie Masters sees a boy wearing a red football shirt, Dylan Jones, being taken by a clown at a carnival, she tries to alert the crowds. But it's too late. Dylan has disappeared.... Thirty years later, Josie is working as a police officer in Bath. The remains of the body of a child have been found - complete with tatters of a torn red football shirt. Is it the boy she saw vanish in the clutches of the clown? Or is it someone else altogether?