Juvenile Nonfiction / Readers Books

Misunderstood and unappreciated in its time, Melville's monumental work has become the classic epic of American literature. He tells the dual story of the initiation of young Ishmael, a schoolteacher, into the life of a seaman, and the tragedy of Captain Ahab's obsession with the white whale. The novel begins with a lengthy dissection of the word WHALE and its origins, and includes numerous citations about whales and the hunting of them, all taken from the extensive notes Melville accumulated during his research at the New York Public Library, and which he could not bear to leave out. After this rather pedantic beginning, the story proper begins. Another exploration of Melville's perennial themes of good vs. evil and the fundamental isolation of the human condition, MOBY-DICK is a layered, complex, allusive book that is part rip-roaring adventure tale, part quest, part travel chronicle, part picaresque coming-of-age novel. At the end of the wrenching narrative, Ishmael sets himself the task of telling the tale that would make Melville's reputation as one of the greatest American writers.

Since its original publication in 1911, this wonderful classic has entranced generations of children with an evergreen mix of orphans, adversity, and a brilliantly honest characterization of children. Nine-year-old Mary Lennox's transformation from a petulant, spoiled child to care-free lass on the moors of England opens as the girl finds herself suddenly orphaned in India. Sent to live with her self-absorbed uncle on his huge estate in Yorkshire, Mary is charmed against her will by the cheerful Dickon, a boy who can charm wild animals. She also discovers Colin, the hidden invalid son of her uncle, who is just as spoiled as she. After Mary finds an intriguing walled garden that had not been taken care of for 10 years, the children immerse themselves in secretly tending it, and through the joy of nurturing living things, grow in health and good spirits themselves.

THE CALL OF THE WILD, Jack London's masterpiece, tells the gripping tale of a dog named Buck who is wrenched out of his life of ease and luxury to become a sled dog in Alaska. Drawing on his wolf heritage, Buck must fight for survival in an alien environment.

At a dinner party in suburban London, the Time Traveller, known to the reader only as the Eminent Scientist, speaks to his guests about the fourth dimension of space--i.e. time. He states that it is possible to travel through time much as one travels through space. The guests are not persuaded, even after seeing the Eminent Scientist's time machine itself. At a later dinner party, the scientist arrives a little late, rumpled and dirty. He tells them he has spent the equivalent of eight days in the year 802,701. He encountered the Eloi, a race of delicate gentle vegetarians who exist in an idyllic garden, and the Morlocks, who live underground and operate the machinery and industrial equipment of the world. The Eloi, in other words are descendents of capitalism, and the Morlocks are the progeny of the proletariat. The Time Traveller then hurries into the year 30,000,000, where he sees a single life form--a round, tentacled thing near the ocean. He concludes that this represents the end of life on earth.

First produced in 1897, CYRANO DE BERGERAC takes place in the 17th century. Rostand's classic drama presents a complex hero--one who is in the tradition of both the swashbuckling adventurer and the sensitive, more modern thinker and self-questioner. Cursed with ugliness but blessed with sublime wit and poetic ability, the gallant Cyrano loves his cousin Roxanne, who loves the handsome but inarticulate Christian. By means of his own gifts with language, Cyrano selflessly helps Christian woo Roxane--and only when it's too late does she realize that the passion and eloquence she has prized belong not to Christian but to Cyrano, and that it is her grotesque cousin she has loved all along.

In Robert Louis Stevenson's nightmarish, suspenseful, and deeply disturbing novel, Dr. Jekyll experiments with a drug that splits his personality into good and evil elements. Gradually, he loses control of the process and finds himself slipping more and more frequently into the guise of the evil and depraved Hyde. Finally, Hyde is accused of murder, and the good doctor, tormented by the struggle between good and evil that he embodies, is forced into an act of violence by his tortured conscience. Narrated by several onlookers, as well as by Jekyll himself, DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, one of the earliest "horror" tales (1886), is arguably the most famous horror story ever written; the concept of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" to signify a split personality has become deeply embedded in the public consciousness, even for those who have never read the book. It has, of course, been dramatized numerous times in numerous ways; it has prompted many interpretations since its publication in 1886, including the view that it was a precursor of Freud's work on the ego and the libido. Stevenson wrote the novel in a fever, finishing it in less than three days while he was deathly ill with tuberculosis. He lived, however, eight more years, dying in Samoa at the age of 44.

Here are rhyming riddles that challenge readers to find objects hidden throughout bright, cluttered photographs.