All Graded Readers

Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 5 The Bride Price

Buchi Emecheta
Retold by Rosemary Border

STAGE 5 - Human Interest

When her father dies, Aku-nna and her young brother have no one to look after them. They are welcomed by their uncle because of Aku-nna's 'bride price' - the money that her future husband will pay for her.

In her new, strange home one man is kind to her and teaches her to become a woman. Soon they are in love, although everyone says he is not a suitable husband for her. The more the world tries to separate them, the more they are drawn together - until, finally, something has to break.

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 5 The Dead of Jericho

Colin Dexter
Retold by Clare West

STAGE 5 - Crime & Mystery

Chief Inspector Morse is drinking a pint of beer. He is thinking about an attractive woman who lives not far away. The woman he is thinking of is hanging, dead, from the ceiling of her kitchen. On the floor lies a chair, almost two metres away from the woman's feet.

Chief Inspector Morse finishes his pint, and orders another. Perhaps he will visit Anne, after all. But he is in no particular hurry.

Meanwhile, Anne is still hanging in her kitchen, waiting for the police to come and cut her down. She is in no hurry, either.

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 5 The Garden Party and Other Stories

Katherine Mansfield
Retold by Rosalie Kerr

STAGE 5 - Human Interest

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.

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 6 Dublin People - Short Stories

Maeve Binchy
Retold by Jennifer Bassett

STAGE 6 - Human Interest

A young country girl comes to live and work in Dublin. Jo is determined to be modern and independent, and to have a wonderful time. But life in a big city is full of strange surprises for a shy country girl . . .

Gerry Moore is a man with a problem - alcohol. He knows he must give it up, and his family and friends watch nervously as he battles against it. But drink is a hard enemy to fight . . .

These stories by the Irish writer Maeve Binchy are full of affectionate humour and wit, and sometimes a little sadness.

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 6 Tess of the d'Urbervilles Audio CD Pack

Thomas Hardy
Retold by Clare West

STAGE 6 - Classics

A pretty young girl has to leave home to make money for her family. She is clever and a good worker; but she is uneducated and does not know the cruel ways of the world. So, when a rich young man says he loves her, she is careful - but not careful enough. He is persuasive, and she is overwhelmed. It is not her fault, but the world says it is. Her young life is already stained by men's desires, and by death.

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 6 The Joy Luck Club

Amy Tan
Retold by Clare West

STAGE 6 - Human Interest

There are so many things that a mother wishes to teach her daughter. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to keep hoping, when hope is your only joy. How to laugh for ever.

This is the story of four mothers and their daughters - Chinese-American women, the mothers born in China, and the daughters born in America. Through their eyes we see life in pre-Revolutionary China, and life in downtown San Francisco; women struggling to find a cultural identity that can include a past and a future half a world apart.

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 2 Stories from the Five Towns Audio CD Pack

Arnold Bennett
Retold by Nick Bullard

STAGE 2 - Human Interest

Arnold Bennett is famous for his stories about the Five Towns and the people who live there. They look and sound just like other people, and, like all of us, sometimes they do some very strange things. There's Sir Jee, who is a rich businessman. So why is he making a plan with a burglar? Then there is Toby Hall. Why does he decide to visit Number 11 Child Row, and who does he find there? And then there are the Hessian brothers and Annie Emery - and the little problem of twelve thousand pounds.

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 2 The Children of the New Forest Audio CD Pack

Captain Marryat
Retold by Rowena Akinyemi

STAGE 2 - Human Interest

England in 1647: King Charles is in prison, and Cromwell's men are fighting the King's men. These are dangerous times for everybody.

The four Beverley children have no parents; their mother is dead and their father died while fighting for the King. Now Cromwell's soldiers have come to burn the house - with the children in it.

The four of them escape into the New Forest - but how will they live? What will they eat? And will Cromwell's soldiers find them?

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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 . . .

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