Graded Readers

Dominoes Three The Faithful Ghost and Other Tall Tales Pack

Selected by Bill Bowler
Text adaptation by Bill Bowler

A 'Tall Tale' is a story that's hard to believe, and the five tall tales in this book all tell of ghosts. Some have dark secrets buried in the past, others bring messages for the living. Some are laughable, some are sad, and some are just evil.

Sometimes there's a logical explanation for the strangest happenings, but often things cannot be explained by logic alone. Either way, you're sure to find some frightening reading between the covers of this book.

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 5 Bestseller Pack

Pack contains one copy of each of the following eight titles:

Brat Farrar
David Copperfield
Deadlock
Far from the Madding Crowd
Ghost Stories
Great Expectations
Sense and Sensibility
Wuthering Heights

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 4 The Unquiet Grave - Short Stories

M.R. James
Retold by Peter Hawkins

STAGE 4 - Fantasy & Horror

If you find a locked room in a lonely inn, don't try to open it, even on a bright sunny day. If you find a strange whistle hidden among the stones of an old church, don't blow it. If a mysterious man gives you a piece of paper with strange writing on it, give it back to him at once. And if you call a dead man from his grave, don't expect to sleep peacefully ever again.

Read these five ghost stories by daylight, and make sure your door is locked.

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 4 The Whispering Knights

Penelope Lively
Retold by Clare West

STAGE 4 - Fantasy & Horror

'I don't know that you have done anything wrong,' Miss Hepplewhite said. 'But it is possible that you have done something rather dangerous.'

William and Susie thought they were just playing a game when they cooked a witch's brew in the old barn and said a spell over it, but Martha was not so sure. And indeed, the three friends soon learn that they have called up something dark and evil out of the distant past . . .

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 6 Meteor and Other Stories

John Wyndham
Retold by Patrick Nobes

STAGE 6 - Fantasy & Horror

It was just a smooth round metal ball, less than a metre in diameter. Although it was still hot from its journey through the huge nothingness of space, it looked quite harmless. But what was it, exactly? A meteor, perhaps - just one of those pieces of rock from outer space that occasionally fall down on to the planet Earth. But meteors don't usually make strange hissing sounds . . .

In this collection of four of his famous science-fiction stories, John Wyndham creates visions of the future that make us think carefully about the way we live now.

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 4 The Songs of Distant Earth and Other Stories

Arthur C. Clarke
Retold by Jennifer Bassett

STAGE 4 - Fantasy & Horror

'High above them, Lora and Clyde heard a sound their world had not heard for centuries - the thin scream of a starship coming in from outer space, leaving a long white tail like smoke across the clear blue sky. They looked at each other in wonder. After three hundred years of silence, Earth had reached out once more to touch Thalassa . . .'

And with the starship comes knowledge, and love, and pain.

In these five science-fiction stories Arthur C. Clarke takes us travelling through the universe into the unknown, but always possible future.

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 2 Five Children and It Audio CD Pack

Edith Nesbit
Retold by Diane Mowat

STAGE 2 - Fantasy & Horror

When the children dug a hole in the gravel-pit, they were very surprised at what they found. 'It' was a Psammead, a sand-fairy, thousands of years old.

It was a strange little thing - fat and furry, and with eyes on long stalks. It was often very cross and unfriendly, but it could give wishes - one wish a day. 'How wonderful!' the children said.

But wishes are difficult things. They can get you into trouble . . .

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 5 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Philip K. Dick
Retold by A. Hopkins and J. Potter

STAGE 5 - Fantasy & Horror

San Francisco lies under a cloud of radioactive dust. People live in half-deserted apartment buildings, and keep electric animals as pets because so many real animals have died. Most people emigrate to Mars - unless they have a job to do on Earth.

Like Rick Deckard - android killer for the police and owner of an electric sheep. This week he has to find, identify, and kill six androids which have escaped from Mars. They're machines, but they look and sound and think like humans - clever, dangerous humans. They will be hard to kill.

The film Blade Runner was based on this famous novel.

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 5 Ghost Stories

Retold by Rosemary Border

STAGE 5 - Fantasy & Horror

After dinner we turned the lights out and played 'hide-and-seek'. In the dark, I touched a hand, a very cold hand. Now, because of the game, I had to hide in the dark with . . . with this cold person - not speaking, not knowing who it was. Slowly the others found us, hid with us, until we were all there - all thirteen. Thirteen? But there were only twelve people in the house!

We touched each other in the dark, counting. Thirteen. Quickly, nervously, I lit a match to see . . .

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