Жанр: Изучение языков

A level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Written for Learners of English by Rosemary Border. One day, a farmer tells a farm boy to take everything out of an old building and throw it away. ‘It’s all rubbish,’ he says. In the middle of all the rubbish, the boy finds a beautiful old piano. He has never played before, but now, when his fingers touch the piano, he begins to play. He closes his eyes and the music comes to him – and the music moves his fingers. When he opens his eyes again, he knows that his life is changed for…

A level 5 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Clare West. The wind is strong on the Yorkshire moors. There are few trees, and fewer houses, to block its path. There is one house, however, that does not hide from the wind. It stands out from the hill and challenges the wind to do its worst. The house is called Wuthering Heights. When Mr Earnshaw brings a strange, small, dark child back home to Wuthering heights, it seems he has opened his doors to trouble. He has invited in something that, like the wind, is safer kept out of the…

A level 4 Oxford Bookworms Library graded readers. Retold for Learners of English by Clare West. A hundred years ago a seaman’s life was full of danger, but Jim, the first mate on board the Patna, is not afraid of danger. He is young, strong, confident of his bravery. He dreams of great adventures – and the chance to show the world what a hero he is. But the sea is no place for dreamers. When the chance comes, on a calm moonlit night in the Indian Ocean, Jim fails the test, and his world falls to pieces around him. He disappears into the jungles of south-east Asia, searching for a way to…

A level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Diane Mowat. I often walked along the shore, and one day I saw something in the sand. I went over to look at it more carefully… It was a footprint – the footprint of a man!’ In 1659 Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked on a small island off the coast of South America. After fifteen years alone, he suddenly learns that there is another person on the island. But will this man be a friend – or an…

A level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library graded readers. Written for Learners of English by Michael Duckworth. Mr James Conway wants to make money. He wants to build new houses and shops – and he wants to build them on an old graveyard, on the island of Haiti. There is only one old man who still visits the graveyard; and Mr Conway is not afraid of one old man. But the old man has friends – friends in the graveyard, friends who lie dead, under the ground. And when Mr Conway starts to build his houses, he makes the terrible mistake of disturbing the sleep of the…

A level 4 Oxford Bookworms Library graded readers. Retold for Learners of English by Kieran McGovern. When a handsome young man begins to court Catherine Sloper, she feels she is very lucky. She is a quiet, gentle girl, but neither beautiful nor clever; no one had ever admired her before, or come to the front parlour of her home in Washington Square to whisper soft words of love to her. But in New York in the 1840s young ladies are not free to marry where they please. Catherine must have her father’s permission, and Dr Sloper is a rich man. One day Catherine will have a fortune of 30,000…

A level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library graded readers. Written for Learners of English by Tim Vicary. All they could hear was the wind, and the waves crashing on to the rocks. All they could see was the night. They could not see the ship, broken in two. They could not see the people holding on to the dark wet rock, slowly dying of cold. And they could not hear the cries for help – only the wind. How could they save the people on the rock? Was their wooden boat stronger than the iron ship? Were a man and his daughter stronger than the great waves that broke the ship in two? The Forfarshire was…

A level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Written for Learners of English by Rachel Bladon. What is Japan? It is everything new and modern: the Tokyo Sky Tree, 634 metres high; amazing cameras and phones; karaoke and manga; trains going past at 300 kilometres an hour. And it is everything ancient too: beautiful palaces; high mountains and hot springs; cherry blossom in the spring; quiet gardens with water and trees. Here the past meets the future all the time. From sumo wrestlers to robots, Japan has something amazing for…

A level 4 Oxford Bookworms Library graded readers. Retold for Learners of English by Kate Mattock. Life in the small English town of Cranford seems very quiet and peaceful. The ladies of Cranford lead tidy, regular lives. They make their visits between the hours of twelve and three, give little evening parties, and worry about their maid-servants. But life is not always smooth – there are little arguments and jealousies, sudden deaths and unexpected marriages… Mrs Gaskell’s timeless picture of small-town life in the first half of the nineteenth century has delighted readers for nearly…

A Starter level Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Written for Learners of English by Lester Vaughan. ‘The people on this island don’t like archaeologists,’ the woman on the ferry says. You only want to study the 4,500 year-old Irish megalithic stones but very soon strange things begin to happen to you. Can you solve the mystery in…

A level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Written for Learners of English by Judith Dean. In a city in Arabia there lives a boy called Aladdin. He is poor and often hungry, but one day he finds an old lamp. When he rubs the lamp, smoke comes out of it, and then out of the smoke comes a magical jinnee. With the jinnee’s help, Aladdin is soon rich, with gold and jewels and many fine things. But can he win the love of the Sultan’s daughter, the beautiful Princess…

A level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Jennifer Bassett. Dr Huxtable has a school for boys in the north of England. When the Duke of Holdernesse decides to send his young son there, that is good news for the school. The Duke is a very important person, and Dr Huxtable is happy to have his son in the school. But two weeks later Dr Huxtable is the unhappiest man in England. Why? And why does he take the train down to London and go to Baker Street? Why does he need the help of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes? Because someone has kidnapped the…

A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded readers. Retold for Learners of English by Clare West. On a stormy winter night, a stranger knocks at the door of a shepherd’s cottage. He is cold and hungry, and wants to get out of the rain. He is welcomed inside, but he does not give his name or his business. Who is he, and where has he come from? And he is only the first visitor to call at the cottage that night… In these three short stories, Thomas Hardy gives us pictures of the lives of shepherds and hangmen, dukes and teachers. But rich or poor, young or old, they all have the same feelings…

A level 4 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Rosemary Border. You are walking through the streets of London. It is getting dark and you want to get home quickly. You enter a narrow side-street. Everything is quiet, but as you pass the door of a large, windowless building, you hear a key turning in the lock. A man comes out and looks at you. You have never seen him before, but you realize immediately that he hates you. You are shocked to discover, also, that you hate him. Who is this man that everybody hates? And why is he coming out of the laboratory of…

A level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Nick Bullard. Tom Sawyer does not like school. He does not like work, and he never wants to get out of bed in the morning. But he likes swimming and fishing, and having adventures with his friends. And he has a lot of adventures. One night, he and his friend Huck Finn go to the graveyard to look for ghosts. They don’t see any ghosts that night. They see something worse than a ghost – much, much…

A level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Written for Learners of English by Tim Vicary. In the summer of 1910, a race began. A race to be the first man at the South Pole, in Antarctica. Robert Falcon Scott, an Englishman, left London in his ship, the Terra Nova, and began the long journey south. Five days later, another ship also began to travel south. And on this ship was Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian. But Antarctica is the coldest place on earth, and it is a long, hard journey over the ice to the South Pole. Some of the travellers never returned home. This is the story of Scott and…

A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Jennifer Bassett. I wish I could get through into looking-glass house,’ Alice said. ‘Let’s pretend that the glass has gone soft and… Why, I do believe it has! It’s turning into a kind of cloud!’ A moment later Alice is inside the looking-glass world. There she finds herself part of a great game of chess, travelling through forests and jumping across brooks. The chess pieces talk and argue with her, give orders and repeat poems… It is the strangest dream that anyone ever…

A level 5 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Peter Hawkins. When Carruthers joins his friend Arthur Davies on his yacht Dulcibella, he is expecting a pleasant sailing holiday in the Baltic Sea. But the holiday turns into an adventure of a different kind. He and Davies soon find themselves sailing in the stormy waters of the North Sea, exploring the channels and sandbanks around the German Frisian Islands, and looking for a secret – a secret that could mean great danger for England. Erskine Childers’ novel, published in 1903, was the first great…

A level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Written for Learners of English by Tim Vicary. A woman finds a man on a beach. He is very cold, his clothes are wet, and he cannot speak. The woman phones for help, and an ambulance comes and takes the man to hospital. In hospital they ask the man questions, but he does not answer. He still cannot speak – or does not want to speak. Who is he, this strange man from the sea? What is his name? Where did he come from? And why do they call him the Piano…

A level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by John Escott. Sherlock Holmes is the greatest detective the world has ever seen, and he knows it. As the famous bank-robber, John Clay, says to him, ‘You think of everything, Mr Holmes. You’re very clever.’ People come to him with problems that no one, not even the police, can solve. Holmes sits, and thinks, and smokes his pipe, and in the end he finds the answer. In these plays, based on two of his stories, Holmes, helped by his old friend, Dr Watson, uses his great intelligence to solve two…