Graded Readers

Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 4 Doors to a Wider Place: Stories from Australia Audio CD Pack

Retold by Christing Lindop

STAGE 4 - World Stories

'When it came to football, Billy was different. Black hands grab the ball. Black feet kick the ball. Black hopes rise up with the ball to the sickly white sky. No one can stop him now. He forgets about the river, and the people of his blood . . .'

But who can forget their own past? Billy finds that the ties which hold him to the people of his blood are strong indeed . . .

The stories in this volume of World Stories are by Australian writers Mena Abdullah & Ray Mathew, Judith Wright, Archie Weller, Dal Stivens, David Malouf, Marion Halligan.

• Where to order

Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 4 Land of my Childhood: Stories from South Asia

Retold by Clare West

STAGE 4 - World Stories

'My brother preferred being with mother and me. He used to help us prepare vegetables in the kitchen or make the bread. But what he liked best was listening to my mother's stories.'

But those childhood days are long gone, and now a great distance divides sister and brother, children and mother.

The stories in this volume of World Stories come from India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The writers are Romesh Gunesekera, M. Athar Tahir, Chitra Divakaruni, Anu Kumar, Anne Ranasinghe, Ruskin Bond, Anita Desai, Vijita Fernando, and Amara Bavani Dev.

• Where to order

Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 3 The Long White Cloud: Stories from New Zealand

Retold by Christine Lindop

STAGE 3 - World Stories

Nani Tama looked at each of us - Dad, Auntie Hiraina, my cousin Timi, and myself. His eyes were angry. 'You fullas want me to die here in this room? Looking at these four walls? When the whakapapa is not yet finished?'

But Nani Tama gets his own way, and his grandson drives him through the night, to find the missing pieces from the family history.

The stories in this volume of World Stories are by New Zealand writers James Courage, Witi Ihimaera, Philip Mincher , and Joy Cowley.

• Where to order

Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 4 Doors to a Wider Place: Stories from Australia

Retold by Christine Lindop

STAGE 4 - World Stories

'When it came to football, Billy was different. Black hands grab the ball. Black feet kick the ball. Black hopes rise up with the ball to the sickly white sky. No one can stop him now. He forgets about the river, and the people of his blood . . .'

But who can forget their own past? Billy finds that the ties which hold him to the people of his blood are strong indeed . . .

The stories in this volume of World Stories are by Australian writers Mena Abdullah & Ray Mathew, Judith Wright, Archie Weller, Dal Stivens, David Malouf, Marion Halligan.

• Where to order

Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 2 Changing their Skies: Stories from Africa

Retold by Jenifer Bassett

STAGE 2 - World Stories

'Then a letter came for Aloo from a famous college in America. They offered him a place . . . a place with a scholarship. Aloo could not believe it at first. He read the letter again and again.'

Aloo is very happy, but soon he finds that it is not so easy. He will need money to live on, money for his plane ticket . . . And then there is Mother . . .

The stories in this volume of World Stories come from Malawi, South Africa, and Tanzania by African writers Steve Chimombo, Farida Karodia, and M. G. Vassanji.

• Where to order

Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 5 Treading on Dreams: Stories from Ireland Audio CD Pack

Retold by Clare West

STAGE 5 - World Stories

'At home we started with an innocent life. Walking home from village dances across pale wet fields, looking at birds on the moonlit lake, playing a tune across the water in the early morning with no other sound in the clear cold air.'

Innocence and experience, loss and longing, humour and sadness run hand in hand through these stories.

The stories in this volume of World Stories are by Irish writers Brian Friel, Edna O'Brien, William Trevor, Lorcan Byrne, Frank O'Connor, Claire Keegan, Eamonn Sweeney, and Somerville & Ross.

• Where to order

Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 3 Go, Lovely Rose and Other Stories

H.E. Bates
Retold by Rosemary Border

STAGE 3 - Human Interest

A warm summer night. The moon shines down on the quiet houses and gardens. Everyone is asleep. Everyone except the man in pyjamas and slippers, standing on the wet grass at the end of his garden, watching and waiting . . .

In these three short stories, H. E. Bates presents ordinary people like you and me. But as we get to know them better, we see that their feelings are not at all ordinary. In fact, what happens to them - and in them - is passionate, and even extraordinary. Could this happen to you and me?

• Where to order

Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 3 The Last Sherlock Holmes Story

Michael Dibdin
Retold by Rosalie Kerr

STAGE 3 - Crime & Mystery

For fifty years after Dr Watson's death, a packet of papers, written by the doctor himself, lay hidden in a locked box. The papers contained an extraordinary report of the case of Jack the Ripper and the horrible murders in the East End of London in 1888. The detective, of course, was the great Sherlock Holmes - but why was the report kept hidden for so long?

This is the story that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never wrote. It is a strange and frightening tale . . .

• Where to order

Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 2 Cries from the Heart: Stories from Around the World Audio CD Pack

Retold by Jenifer Bassett

STAGE 2 - World Stories

From Botswana to New Zealand, from Jamaica to Nigeria, from Uganda to Malaysia, from India to South Africa, these moving stories show us that the human heart is the same in every place. Fear and pain, happiness and sadness belong to us all.

These eight stories were winning entries in the 2004 Commonwealth Short Story Competition. The writers are Sefi Atta, Adrienne M. Frater, Lauri Kubuitsile, Erica N. Robinson, Jackee Budesta Batanda, Janet Tay Hui Ching, Anuradha Muralidharan, and Tod Collins.

• Where to order