Synopsis: This is a short story about a young girl named Marie whose favorite Christmas toy, the Nutcracker, comes alive and defeats the evil Mouse King in a battle, and then takes Marie to a magical kingdom full of dolls. On Christmas Eve, Marie Stahlbaum and her siblings receive several gifts including a nutcracker. The …
Synopsis: This is a short story about Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser businessman who is visited first by the ghost of his former business partner, Jacob Marley, and afterwards the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future. Jacob Marley tells Scrooge that he will be visited by three spirits and that if he listens to …
Synopsis: This is a fiction book about a magical circus that only opens at night. It is called Le Cirque des Reves (The Circus of Dreams) and only opens at night. It is about two rival magicians, Celia Bowen, the daughter of the famous illusionist, Prospero the Enchanter, and Marco Alisdair, the orphan ward of …
Synopsis: This is a short story set in Sleepy Hollow, New York. It is about Ichabod Crane, a superstitious schoolteacher. He is interested in Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter of a wealthy farmer. His rival Abraham (Brom) Bones is also interested in Katrina. One night, Ichabod attends a harvest party at the home of the …
Synopsis: This is a fiction story set at Hill House, an old, isolated, mansion surrounded by hills. Dr. John Montague, an investigator of the supernatural, has rented Hill House for the summer and invited Eleanor Vance and Theodora as his guests because of their previous experience with paranormal events. Luke Sanderson, the young heir to …
Synopsis: This is a children’s fiction book about Peter Pan, a mischievous boy, who can fly and lives on the island of Neverland which is inhabited by mermaids, pirates, fairies, and Native Americans. He is an eternal child and will never grow up. This story also involves Wendy Darling, and her brothers John and Michael, …
Synopsis: This is a children’s fiction book about a girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world called Wonderland full of unusual creatures including the White Rabbit, the Mouse, the Dodo, the Cheshire Cat, the Caterpillar, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the Queen of Hearts, and the King of …
Synopsis: This is a children’s fiction book about a ten- year old boy named Billy Colman. He lives in the Ozark Mountains of Oklahoma with his mother, father, and three younger sisters. Billy has always wanted a pair of red-bone coonhounds for coon hunting. After saving two years for them, Billy walks twenty miles to …
Synopsis: This is a children’s fiction book about Stanley Yelnats IV, a fourteen year old boy, sent to Camp Green Lake, a correctional boot camp in a desert in Texas after being wrongfully convicted of stealing. His whole family has bad luck and is cursed by his great-great grandfather Elya Yelnats. The boys at Camp …
Synopsis: This is a fiction book about Lily Bloom. She is twenty-three years old and moves to Boston to start her own floral shop. Lily grew up in a household with a father who was physically abusive towards her mother and was resentful towards her father and towards her mother for staying with him. Atlas …