Early World Literature

Does time heal all wounds? Or do some last forever? Pennsylvania, 1971: Graham Davidson is a young man with survivor’s guilt after the death of three siblings. Estranged from his father and seeking a direction in his life, Graham learns about vision quests from a Crow Indian. He secures seasonal employment in Yellowstone National Park and embarks on a spiritual journey. Wyoming Territory, 1871: Under a full moon at a sacred thermal area, Graham finds himself in Yellowstone a century earlier - one year before it was established as a national park.

The year is 1902, and the world is changing with the new century. Twenty-one-year-old Ava Stanley, the daughter of two celebrated Arcane Taxonomists, has much to live up to—however scarce her magical abilities may be. While her parents draw power from spectacular birds and megafauna, Ava’s connection to the natural world is much smaller, stemming from the microscopic. This is useful in her quest to become a doctor, as she studies the burgeoning links between bacteria and disease, but it means Ava’s power itself is also smaller.

Mecklenburgh Square has always been a radical address. Nestled in the heart of Bloomsbury, these townhouses have borne witness to the lives of some of the century's most revolutionary cultural figures - many of whom were extraordinary women. United by their desire to experiment with new ways of living - and, therefore, of being - these authors and thinkers were trailblazers in their commitment to creative independence.

In a small village in Italy at the turn of the 20th century, Jane chafes at stifling routine and tradition. So when an opportunity presents itself to immigrate to America, her hunger for escape compels her to leave everything behind. Far away, in Henry Ford's factories in Michigan, a new kind of life is taking shape, and it offers gleaming promise for Jane and her young husband.

The gravy train hasn’t stopped in the hollers of western Virginia for more than 30 years when Stony Shelor starts his junior year at Jubal Early High. Class divides and racism are still the hardened norms as the Eisenhower years draw to a close. Violence lies coiled under the calm surface, ready to strike at any time.

It’s 1806. A young republic just three decades old - the United States of America - is about to make a great push westward, across the Mississippi, into a wild, beautiful, and dangerous land. A territory of towering mountains and violent waters, of icy glaciers and searing deserts. The great northwest. It is a time and a place where fortunes will be made, destinies will be revealed, and legends will rise.

In 1918, Winkler explodes from a community of 13 helpful souls to a crowded coal mining town of strangers with divided loyalties. War in faraway Europe means more money in the pockets of May Rose and her friends, but as a new wife and mother she feels cut off from people and community events. And though mine owners like her husband are making money hand over fist, the workers' poverty and resentment threaten trouble when the war ends.

Early Light offers three very different aspects of Osamu Dazai's genius: the title story relates his misadventures as a drinker and a family man in the terrible fire bombings of Tokyo at the end of WWII. Having lost their own home, he and his wife flee with a new baby boy and their little girl to relatives in Kofu, only to be bombed out anew.

Growing up on a farm in early twentieth-century rural Iceland, Karitas Ólafsdóttir, one of six siblings, yearns for a new life. An artist, Karitas has a powerful calling and is determined to never let go of her true being, one unsuited for the conventional. But she is powerless against the fateful turns of real life and all its expectations of women. Pulled back time and again by design and by chance to the Icelandic countryside - as dutiful daughter, loving mother, and fisherman’s wife - she struggles to thrive, to be what she was meant to be.

The late 16th-century penal debt bond, which allowed an unsatisfied creditor to seize the body of his debtor, set in motion a series of precedents that would shape the legal, philosophical, and moral issue of property-in-person in England and America for centuries. Focusing on this historical juncture at which debt litigation was not merely an aspect of society but seemed to engulf it completely, Of Bondage examines a culture that understood money and the body of the borrower as comparable forms of property that impinged on one another at the moment of default.

Ted Hughes wrote a series of stories for children from the early 1960s through until 1995 about how the world, and the creatures in it, came into being. Meet the Polar Bear whose obsession with her snowy white fur is so great that she can live only in a landscape surrounded by her own reflection; the Whale, growing in God's garden beside the carrots; King Leo, who began life because God was hungry for his sausages; poor Parrot's painful defeat in the marriage song contest at the wedding of Man and Woman; and Sparrow's heroic battle against the bird-swallowing Black Hole.

Through vivid storytelling, Early Bloomers explores the challenges and triumphs faced by high schoolers as they navigated the complexities of love, sexual awakening, identity, and self-discovery in this era of openness and cultural fusion. This novella holds high literary value in shedding light on a rarely explored group of individuals, and it also holds immense social and economic significance as some of them will play a major role in shaping the next generation as leaders.

Clap your hands and sing along to this fresh take on a traditional singalong. The multicultural children in this colorful early learner encourage action and imagination, and two full spreads at the end teach "hello" in 36 languages, and the names of the children and their countries of origin.

Rot is a mutant potato. Like most mutant potatoes, Rot loves mud. He plays games in it, he eats it, he even sleeps in it! So, when Rot sees the most magnificent, messy mud pit ever, he can’t wait to dive right in. But then, Rot’s big brother warns him: Watch out for the Squirm! The Squirm is slippery and slimy and gross and grimy, and it lives in the beloved mud. Now, Rot’s too scared to jump into the puddle. Can anything help him feel brave enough to take the plunge and face...the Squirm?

In the midst of boomtown Chicago, two Jewish families have suffered terrible blows. The Lehrmans, who run a small hat factory, lost their beloved son, Harold, in a blizzard. The Chimbrovas, who run a saloon, lost three of their boys on the SS Eastland when it sank in 1915. Each family holds out hope that one of their remaining children will rise to carry on the family business. But Benny Lehrman has no interest in making hats. His true passion is piano - especially jazz.

Enjoy this collection of stories about children exploring the world around them. The collection begins with "Nature's Treasures", a poem featuring a young girl who learns about the wonders of the natural world. After this poem, enjoy eight short stories of children looking closer at nature: "Hidden Wonders", "The Building Season", "Weeds and Worms and Things that Squirm"," "A Pond for Maddie", "Flowers that Fly", "The Wasp's Picnic", "Firefly Tag", and "While Alena Was Sleeping".

The story opens with a poem and a premonition just outside Ft. Lewis in the early days of World War II. Young newlywed Maudie Cameron watches her husband and others around her do their part to help on the home front. Feeling left out, she is determined to help with the war effort in the only way she can: she becomes a landlady and rents out one-room cabins and a trailer that resides on her secluded property.

In einer Sommernacht des Jahres 1941 beobachtet die 18-jährige Sofieke, wie ein Fallschirmagent in den besetzten Niederlanden landet. Der Student Gerhard soll für die Engländer spionieren. Er wird jedoch sofort festgenommen. Gerhard entgeht der Hinrichtung nur, indem er sich zum Schein bereiterklärt, als Doppelagent für die deutsche Spionageabwehr zu arbeiten. Arthur Seyß-Inquart, der mächtigste Nazi in den Niederlanden, ist Gerhards Nennonkel. Seine fröhlich-naive Tochter Dorli zeigt ihm den Palast, in dem sie jetzt wohnt.

William Wordsworth is one of the greatest poets of English literature. This poem, Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, is often considered as one of Wordsworth's greatest masterpieces. Here, he explores some of the themes that always inspired him, namely his childhood, memories, the beauties of nature, and the human soul. In this audiobook, the poem has been analyzed with a brief annotation with relevant quotations from the original text. The main poem has also been narrated.

What happens when two fairy sisters have magic hands? They turn the sun from dark and cold to warm and bright! Follow along as Abby and Zoe use their special gifts to bring light to the whole world.