Space - With Audio Level 3 Factfiles Oxford Bookworms Library

Vicary, Tim

A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Written for Learners of English by Tim Vicary. Is there anyone who has not looked at the dark sky, and the shining points of light above us, and asked themselves questions about what is out there? Where did our planet come from? When did the universe begin? Could we live on another planet? And one question above all - is there life anywhere else in space? Begin a journey into space - where spacecraft travel at thousands of kilometres an hour, temperatures are millions of degrees, and a planet may be hard rock - or a ball of gas. In space, everything is extraordinary . . .

Future Energy Level 3 Factfiles Oxford Bookworms Library

Raynham, Alex

A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Written for Learners of English by Alex Raynham. Right now, all over the world, people are using energy. As we drive our cars, work on our computers, or even cook food on a wood fire, we probably do not stop to think about where the energy comes from. But when the gas is gone and there is no more coal - what then? Scientists are finding new answers all the time. Get ready for the children whose running feet make the energy to bring water to their village; for the power station that uses warm and cold water to make energy; for the car that saves energy by growing like a plant . . .

Sherlock Holmes Short Stories Level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan

A level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Clare West Sherlock Holmes is the greatest detective of them all. He sits in his room, and smokes his pipe. He listens, and watches, and thinks. He listens to the steps coming up the stairs; he watches the door opening - and he knows what question the stranger will ask. In these three of his best stories, Holmes has three visitors to the famous flat in Baker Street - visitors who bring their troubles to the only man in the world who can help them.

A Midsummer Night's Dream Level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library

Shakespeare, William

A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Written for Learners of English by William Shakespeare. There are broken hearts and kisses and then weddings, so this is a story about love. There are actors who are funny because they cannot act, so it is also a story that makes people laugh. And there are fairies, spirits of the night, so it is a story about mischief and magic too. What happens when love and laughter come together with magic in an Athenian forest? A Midsummer Night's Dream was written in about 1596 and is one of Shakespeare's most popular plays. It has been retold for Bookworms, not as a play, but as a story.

Pit and the Pendulum and Other Stories Level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library

Poe, Edgar Allan

A level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by John Escott. Everybody has bad dreams. Horrible things move towards you in the dark, things you can hear but not see. Then you wake up, in your own warm bed, and turn over to go back to sleep. But imagine that you wake up on a hard floor, in a darkness blacker than the blackest night. You listen to the silence, and smell a wet dead smell. Death is all around you, waiting . . . In these stories by Edgar Allan Poe, death whispers at you from every dark corner, and fear can send you mad . . .

The Omega Files Short Stories Level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library

Bassett, Jennifer

A level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library graded readers. Written for Learners of English by Jennifer Bassett In EDI (the European Department of Intelligence in Brussels) there are some very secret files - the Omega Files. There are strange, surprising, and sometimes horrible stories in these files, but not many people know about them. You never read about them in the newspapers. Hawker and Jude know all about the Omega Files, because they work for EDI. They think fast, they move fast, and they learn some very strange things. They go all over the world, asking difficult questions in dangerous places, but they don't always find the answers . . .

The Girl with Green Eyes - With Audio Starter Level Oxford Bookworms Library

Escott, John

A Starter level Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Written for Learners of English by John Escott. Greg is a porter at the Shepton Hotel in New York. When a girl with beautiful green eyes asks him for help, Greg can't say no. The girl's name is Cassie, and she says she is an artist. She tells Greg that her stepfather has her sketchbooks, and now she wants them back. Cassie says her stepfather is staying at Greg's hotel . . . so what could go wrong?

Little Lord Fauntleroy Level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library

Burnett, Frances Hodgson

A level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Jennifer Bassett. Cedric Errol is seven years old. He lives with his mother in a little house in New York. They don't have much money, but mother and son are good friends. Cedric is a kind, friendly little boy, and everybody likes him. His father was English, but he is now dead, and Cedric and his mother are alone in the world. But one day a lawyer arrives from England with some very surprising news about Cedric's grandfather . . .

Les Miserables Level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library

Bassett, Jennifer

A level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Jennifer Bassett. France, 1815. Jean Valjean leaves prison after nineteen years. These are dangerous and troubled times, and life is hard. Valjean must begin a new life, but how can he escape his past, and his enemy, Inspector Javert? This story for Bookworms is loosely based on the famous novel Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, one of France's greatest writers. The novel was written in 1862, and the story has been retold many times - in a musical, in plays for radio and theatre, and in more than fifty films for television and cinema.

Orca Starter Level Oxford Bookworms Library

Burrows Phillip, Foster Mark

A Starter level Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Written for Learners of English by Phillip Burrows and Mark Foster. When Tonya and her friends decide to sail around the world they want to see exciting things and visit exciting places. But one day, they meet an orca - a killer whale - one of the most dangerous animals in the sea. And life gets a little too exciting.  

Wuthering Heights Level 5 Oxford Bookworms Library

Brontë, Emily

A level 5 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Clare West The wind is strong on the Yorkshire moors. There are few trees, and fewer houses, to block its path. There is one house, however, that does not hide from the wind. It stands out from the hill and challenges the wind to do its worst. The house is called Wuthering Heights. When Mr Earnshaw brings a strange, small, dark child back home to Wuthering heights, it seems he has opened his doors to trouble. He has invited in something that, like the wind, is safer kept out of the house.

The Card - With Audio Level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library

Bennett, Arnold

A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Retold for Learners of English by Nick Bullard. Every town should have a 'card' - someone who gets talked about, someone who does mad and wonderful things, someone who makes you laugh. Bursley in the Five Towns has a 'card': Edward Henry Machin (Denry for short). Denry begins life in a poor little house where the rent is twenty-three pence a week. But before he's thirty, he's made a lot of money, and had more adventures than you and I have had hot dinners. The town of Bursley never stops talking about him. Whatever will young Denry do next?

Anne of Green Gables Level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library

Montgomery, L. M.

A level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Clare West Marilla Cuthbert and her brother Matthew want to adopt an orphan, to help on the farm at Green Gables. They ask for a boy, but they get Anne, who has red hair and freckles, and who talks and talks and talks. They didn't want a girl, but how can they send a child back, like an unwanted parcel? So Anne stays, and begins a new life in the sleepy, quiet village of Avonlea in Canada. But it is not so quiet after Anne comes to live there . . .

Grace Darling Level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library

Vicary, Tim

A level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library graded readers. Written for Learners of English by Tim Vicary All they could hear was the wind, and the waves crashing on to the rocks. All they could see was the night. They could not see the ship, broken in two. They could not see the people holding on to the dark wet rock, slowly dying of cold. And they could not hear the cries for help - only the wind. How could they save the people on the rock? Was their wooden boat stronger than the iron ship? Were a man and his daughter stronger than the great waves that broke the ship in two? The Forfarshire was wrecked off the north-east coast of England in 1838. This is the true story of Grace Darling - a girl who became a famous heroine on that stormy night.

A Ghost in Love and Other Plays Level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library

Dean, Michael

A level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Written for Learners of English by Michael Dean. Do you believe in ghosts? Jerry doesn't. He's a nineteen-year-old American, who just wants a good holiday with his friend, Brad. They are travelling round the north of England by bicycle. But strange things begin to happen in the small hotel where they are staying. First, Brad seems to think that he has been there before. And then a girl called Ellen appears . . . The first of these three original plays is set in the seventeenth century, and the other two take place in modern times. In each play, a ghost comes back from the dead to change the lives of living people.

The Garden Party and Other Stories Level 5 Oxford Bookworms Library

Mansfield, Katherine

A level 5 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Rosalie Kerr Oh, how delightful it is to fall in love for the first time! How exciting to go to your first dance when you are a girl of eighteen! But life can also be hard and cruel, if you are young and inexperienced and travelling alone across Europe . . . or if you are a child from the wrong social class . . . or a singer without work and the rent to be paid. Set in Europe and New Zealand, these nine stories by Katherine Mansfield dig deep beneath the appearances of life to show us the causes of human happiness and despair.

Lorna Doone Level 4 Oxford Bookworms Library

Blackmore, R. D.

A level 4 Oxford Bookworms Library graded readers. Retold for Learners of English by David Penn One winter's day in 1673 young John Ridd is riding home from school, across the wild lonely hills of Exmoor. He has to pass Doone valley - a dangerous place, as the Doones are famous robbers and murderers. All Exmoor lives in fear of the Doones. At home there is sad news waiting for young John, and he learns that he has good reason to hate the Doones. But in the years to come he meets Lorna Doone, with her lovely smile and big dark eyes. And soon he is deeply, hopelessly, in love . . .

The Three Strangers and Other Stories Level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library

Hardy, Thomas

A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded readers. Retold for Learners of English by Clare West On a stormy winter night, a stranger knocks at the door of a shepherd's cottage. He is cold and hungry, and wants to get out of the rain. He is welcomed inside, but he does not give his name or his business. Who is he, and where has he come from? And he is only the first visitor to call at the cottage that night . . . In these three short stories, Thomas Hardy gives us pictures of the lives of shepherds and hangmen, dukes and teachers. But rich or poor, young or old, they all have the same feelings of fear, hope, love, jealousy . . .

The Bront Story Level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library

Vicary, Tim

A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Tim Vicary On a September day in 1821, in the church of a Yorkshire village, a man and six children stood around a grave. They were burying a woman: the man's wife, the children's mother. The children were all very young, and within a few years the two oldest were dead, too. Close to the wild beauty of the Yorkshire moors, the father brought up his young family. Who had heard of the Bronts of Haworth then? Branwell died while he was still a young man, but the three sisters who were left had an extraordinary gift. They could write marvellous stories - Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall . . . But Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bront did not live to grow old or to enjoy their fame. Only their father was left, alone with his memories.

The Girl with Green Eyes Starter Level Oxford Bookworms Library

Escott, John

A Starter level Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Written for Learners of English by John Escott. Greg is a porter at the Shepton Hotel in New York. When a girl with beautiful green eyes asks him for help, Greg can't say no. The girl's name is Cassie, and she says she is an artist. She tells Greg that her stepfather has her sketchbooks, and now she wants them back. Cassie says her stepfather is staying at Greg's hotel ...so what could go wrong?

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - With Audio Level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library

Twain, Mark

A level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Retold for Learners of English by Nick Bullard. Tom Sawyer does not like school. He does not like work, and he never wants to get out of bed in the morning. But he likes swimming and fishing, and having adventures with his friends. And he has a lot of adventures. One night, he and his friend Huck Finn go to the graveyard to look for ghosts. They don't see any ghosts that night. They see something worse than a ghost - much, much worse . . .

Drive into Danger - With Audio Starter Level Oxford Bookworms Library

Border, Rosemary

A Starter level Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Written for Learners of English by Rosemary Border. 'I can drive a truck,' says Kim on her first day at work in the office. When Kim's passenger Andy finds something strange under the truck things get dangerous - very dangerous.

Dead Man's Island Level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library

Escott, John

A level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library graded readers. Written for Learners of English by John Escott Mr Ross lives on an island where no visitors come. He stops people from taking photographs of him. He is young and rich, but he looks sad. And there is one room in his house which is always locked. Carol Sanders and her mother come to the island to work for Mr Ross. Carol soon decides that there is something very strange about Mr Ross. Where did he get his money from? How can a young man buy an island? So she watches, and she listens - and one night she learns what is behind the locked door.

William and Kate Level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library

Lindop, Christine

A level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Written for Learners of English by Christine Lindop. Everybody took photos of Prince William when he first arrived at the University of St Andrews. Crowds of photographers came to the little Scottish town next to the sea and took pictures of this new student - the nineteen-year-old grandson of the Queen of England. But nobody photographed Kate Middleton on her first day at the university. She moved in quietly, ready to begin her studies in art history. She was just an ordinary student with an ordinary future in front of her. Or was she?