It is 24th December – the night before Christmas. Ebenezer Scrooge doesn’t like Christmas.
Christmas is an expensive time, and Scrooge likes one thing: money. So he doesn’t like to give money to poor children in the London streets – or to Bob Cratchit. Cratchit works in Scrooge’s office, and get little money for hid hard work.
Scrooge is not a nice man. But when he gets home that night, three ghosts visit him.
Can the ghosts change this bad old man into a better man?
Zoe Baker works in a bookstore. She also likes acting, and she has a part in the play Romeo and Juliet. Mike Morrison writes about the play for the newspaper. What does he write about Zoe? Is Zoe a good actress … or is she just ‘a pretty face’?
What does Zoe think when she reads the newspaper? What does she do?
Ali Baba finds a thieves’ treasure cave, and he is suddenly rich. Then his brother Kasim visits the cave, and things go wrong. The forty thieves find Kasim there, kill him, and cut him into four pieces. What can Ali Baba do? He wants to bury his brother quietly, but how can he? Morgiana, his servant-girl, has the answer. But what can she do when the thieves find Ali Baba and want to kill him, too?
‘Today you can go round the world in eighty days,’ says Phileas Fogg. ‘Do it, and I pay you 20,000 pounds,’ says his friend Stuart.
This is the beginning of one of Jules Verne’s most exciting stories. Phileas Fogg must get back to London by December 21st or lose all his money. And with the help of his servant, Passepartout, Fogg travels in many ways – from train to elephant – and has some surprising adventures on the way.
The year is 1717. It is a bad time to be the captain of a ship in the Caribbean because of pirates. The most frightening pirate on the sea is Edward Teach, or ‘Blackbeard’.
‘The Governor of Virginia wants us all dead!’ Blackbeard thinks. ‘But can he kill me – the most famous pirate in the Caribbean? No!’
This is his story…
Hal works at the zoo every day and his life isn’t exciting until he meets Tim.
Tim is a movie star. He has a difficult life, and he is unhappy until he meets Hal.
But when they meet, and agree to change places, interesting things start to happen. And, by changing places, the two men learn what is truly important in their lives.
‘Help! A wolf is eating my sheep!’
What happens when a bored shepherd boy lies to the people in his village – and then he later tells the truth?
What do a man and his wife do when their goose lays golden eggs? And what can two travellers learn from a bear in the woods?
These three Greek tales teach us important truths about people today.
‘I’m not going with you, Aunt Dete!’ Heidi cries.
‘Oh yes, you are!’ Dete answers.
Heidi loves her home in the Swiss mountains, her grandfather, and her friend Peter, the goatherd. So when Aunt Dete takes her away to Frankfurt, she doesn’t leave happily.
In Frankfurt, Heidi is soon good friends with Clara Sesemann, a rich but very ill girl in a wheelchair.
But how can Heidi live without the mountains? And what can she do about Fräulein Rottenmeier, the Sesemanns’ unfriendly housekeeper?
Hercules is the strongest man in the world, but one day he does something very bad.
The priestess at Delphi tells him: ‘The gods are angry with you. For twelve years you must work for King Eurystheus, and do twelve tasks for him. When you finish, the gods can forgive your crime.’
Some tasks are easier, and some tasks are more difficult. Can Hercules finish all twelve of them? And what happens when he does?
In Hamburg, Germany, Professor Otto Lidenbrock comes home with an old Icelandic book. In it there is a message about a journey to the centre of the Earth.
Can Lidenbrock and Axel and their Icelandic guide, Hans, find the centre of the Earth? And can they all get home alive after their many underground adventures?
Al Brown plays the guitar in a band with friends. He writes songs, too. ‘Our boy can’t live without his music,’ his parents say.
But when Al’s baby sister, Lisa, arrives from hospital, his life is suddenly different.
Now his mother and father have no time for him, and he has no time for school work – or the band.
Then Al’s sister gets ill. And Grandad tells him, ‘Write a song for Lisa!’ But why, and how can this help?
‘Be careful with Morfran’, Princess Adhan tells her young son, Merlin.
Morfran, the son of the Enchantress Ceridwen, is a bully. Then one day, Merlin drinks one of Ceridwen’s magic potions. After this, he can become different animals, see through walls, change the weather, and look into the future. But Morfran is angry with Merlin when Ceridwen dies. Years later, Morfran – now King Vortigern’s magician – plans to kill Merlin, the boy with no father. How can Merlin’s magic powers help him to fight his old enemy?
‘My friend Queequeg and I are looking for whaling work,’ Ishmael says.
Ishmael is a sailor from New York. With Queequeg the harpooner, he takes work on Captain Ahab’s whaling-ship, the Pequod. The ship’s first mate, Starbuck, wants to hunt whales for their oil. But Captain Ahab isn’t interested. In the hunt for a white whale twenty years earlier, the captain lost a leg. So now Ahab wants revenge on the white whale – Moby-Dick!
Who lives? Who dies? And what happens to Ishmael?
When the Emperor calls every man to join the army and fight the enemy, Mulan’s father is old and ill, and cannot go. Wearing men’s clothes and riding a horse, Mulan leaves her family and fights bravely for the Emperor in her father’s place.
She is soon a hero for all the soldiers in the Chinese army. One of them, Ye Ming, is her best friend. But does he know that she is a woman? And can Mulan fall in love with a friend?
Abby is a teenager, and doesn’t talk much to her parents. Abby’s dad works hard for an oil company, and Abby’s mom doesn’t like her friends. Then, one summer, Abby stays with her crazy Aunt May in California. Here – with Aunt May and her young neighbours Diego and Bianca – she learns to see things differently. But, one night, there’s an oil spill on the beautiful beach near their home.
What can Abby, her aunt, and the neighbours do? And who answers Abby’s call for more help? And how?
Perseus is the son of Danae, Princess of Argos, and the god Zeus. When he is very young, his mother moves with him to live on the island of Seriphos.
Later, Polydectes – the king of Seriphos – wants to marry Danae. Perseus says ‘no’ to this, so Polydectes sends the young man away for the head of Medusa. Medusa is a she-monster, with snakes for hair. Can Perseus find and kill Medusa? And what happens after he goes back to Seriphos?
