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A level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Written for Learners of English by John Escott. Come with us to London – a city as old as the Romans, and as new as the twenty-first century. There are places to go – from Oxford Street to Westminster Abbey, from Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre to Wimbledon Tennis Club. And things to do – ride on the London Eye, visit the markets, go to the theatre, run in the London Marathon. Big, beautiful, noisy, exciting – that’s…

A Starter level Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Written for Learners of English by Tim Vicary. ‘Every day someone steals money from people near the shops. We must stop this,’ says Dan, a police officer. The police use TV cameras but it is not easy because there are so many suspects – who is the…

A level 6 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Diane Mowat. When Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley leave school, their feet are set on very different paths. Kind, foolish Amelia returns to her comfortable home and wealthy family, to await a suitable marriage, while Becky must look out for herself, earning her own living in a hard world. But Becky is neither kind nor foolish, and with her quick brain and keen eye for a chance, her fortunes soon rise, while Amelia’s fall. Greed, ambition, loyalty, folly, wisdom… this famous novel gives us a witty and…

A Starter level Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Written for Learners of English by Phillip Burrows and Mark Foster. When Tonya and her friends decide to sail around the world they want to see exciting things and visit exciting places. But one day, they meet an orca – a killer whale – one of the most dangerous animals in the sea. And life gets a little too…

A level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Diane Mowat. Who wants to live in a house, wear clean clothes, be good, and go to school every day? Not young Huckleberry Finn, that’s for sure. So Huck runs away, and is soon floating down the great Mississippi River on a raft. With him is Jim, a black slave who is also running away. But life is not always easy for the two friends. And there’s 300 dollars waiting for anyone who catches poor…

A level 4 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by John Escott. When Black Beauty is trained to carry a rider on his back, or to pull a carriage behind him, he finds it hard at first. But he is lucky – his first home is a good one, where his owners are kind people, who would never be cruel to a horse. But in the nineteenth century many people were cruel to their horses, whipping them and beating them, and using them like machines until they dropped dead. Black Beauty soon finds this out, and as he describes his life, he has many terrible stories to…

A Starter level Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Written for Learners of English by Christine Lindop. Who is the man with the roses in his hand?’ thinks Anna. ‘I want to meet him.’ ‘Who is the girl with the guitar?’ thinks Will. ‘I like her. I want to meet her.’ But they do not meet. ‘There are lots of men!’ says Anna’s friend Vicki, but Anna cannot forget Will. And then one rainy…

A level 6 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Richard Rogers. London in the 1830s was no place to be if you were a hungry ten-year-old boy, an orphan without friends or family, with no home to go to, and only a penny in your pocket to buy a piece of bread. But Oliver Twist finds some friends – Fagin, the Artful Dodger, and Charley Bates. They give him food and shelter, and play games with him, but it is not until some days later that Oliver finds out what kind of friends they are and what kind of ‘games’ they…

A Starter level Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Written for Learners of English by Phillip Burrows and Mark Foster. The empty centre of Australia. The sun is hot and there are not many people. And when Bill meets a man, alone, standing on an empty road a long way from anywhere, he is surprised and worried. And Bill is right to be worried. Because there is something strange about the man he meets. Very…

A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded readers. Retold for Learners of English by Susan Kingsley. Life is always hard for the poor, in any place and at any time. Ethan Frome is a farmer in Massachusetts. He works long hours every day, but his farm makes very little money. His wife, Zeena, is a thin, grey woman, always complaining, and only interested in her own ill health. Then Mattie Silver, a young cousin, comes to live with the Fromes, to help Zeena and do the housework. Her bright smile and laughing voice bring light and hope into the Fromes’ house – and into Ethan’s lonely…

A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded readers. Written for Learners of English by Tim Vicary. The job was too good. There had to be a problem – and there was. John Duncan was an honest man, but he needed money. He had children to look after. He was ready to do anything, and his bosses knew it. They gave him the job because he couldn’t say no; he couldn’t afford to be honest. And the job was like a poison inside him. It changed him and blinded him, so that he couldn’t see the real poison – until it was too…

A level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library graded readers. Written for Learners of English by Tim Vicary, Sarah Harland is nineteen, and she is in prison. At the airport, they find heroin in her bag. So, now she is waiting to go to court. If the court decides that it was her heroin, then she must die. She says she did not do it. But if she did not, who did? Only two people can help Sarah: her mother, and an old boyfriend who does not love her now. Can they work together? Can they find the real criminal before it is too…

A level 4 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by John Escott. Suddenly, there was a high voice screaming in the darkness: «„Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!“» It was Long John Silver’s parrot, Captain Flint! I turned to run…’ But young Jim Hawkins does not escape from the pirates this time. Will he and his friends find the treasure before the pirates do? Will they escape from the island, and sail back to England with a ship full of…

A level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Diane Mowat. A housewife, a tramp, a lawyer, a waitress, an actress – ordinary people living ordinary lives in New York at the beginning of the twentieth century. The city has changed greatly since that time, but its people are much the same. Some are rich, some are poor, some are happy, some are sad, some have found love, some are looking for love. O. Henry’s famous short stories – sensitive, funny, sympathetic – give us vivid pictures of the everyday lives of these New…

A level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Written for Learners of English by Janet Hardy-Gould. It’s a good place for gold,’ said people in the 1840s, and they came from all over the world. ‘It’s a good place for a prison,’ said the US government in the 1920s, and they put Al Capone there on the island of Alcatraz. ‘It’s a good place for love,’ said the hippies in the 1960s, and they put flowers in their hair and came to Haight Ashbury. And San Francisco is still a good place – to take a hundred photographs, or see the Chinatown…

A level 4 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Clare West. In a hole under the floorboards Silas Marner the linen-weaver keeps his gold. Every day he works hard at his weaving, and every night he takes the gold out and holds the bright coins lovingly, feeling them and counting them again and again. The villagers are afraid of him and he has no family, no friends. Only the gold is his friend, his delight, his reason for living. But what if a thief should come in the night and take his gold away? What will Silas do then? What could possibly comfort him for…

A Starter level Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Written for Learners of English by Phillip Burrows and Mark Foster. ‘How can Mr Frank be angry now?’ thinks Mike happily. His film is good and he is the only cameraman on the volcano. Now he can go home. But then he finds Jenny and she is dying. Rocks start to move and Mike is afraid. Can they get off the volcano alive? And what happens to Mike’s camera and…

A level 6 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Clare West. Jane Eyre is alone in the world. Disliked by her aunt’s family, she is sent away to school. Here she learns that a young girl, with neither money nor family to support her, can expect little from the world. She survives, but she wants more from life than simply to survive: she wants respect, and love. When she goes to work for Mr Rochester, she hopes she has found both at once. But the sound of strange laughter, late at night, behind a locked door, warns her that her troubles are only…

A level 4 Oxford Bookworms Library graded readers. Retold for Learners of English by David Penn. One winter’s day in 1673 young John Ridd is riding home from school, across the wild lonely hills of Exmoor. He has to pass Doone valley – a dangerous place, as the Doones are famous robbers and murderers. All Exmoor lives in fear of the Doones. At home there is sad news waiting for young John, and he learns that he has good reason to hate the Doones. But in the years to come he meets Lorna Doone, with her lovely smile and big dark eyes. And soon he is deeply, hopelessly, in…

A level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Jennifer Bassett. France, 1815. Jean Valjean leaves prison after nineteen years. These are dangerous and troubled times, and life is hard. Valjean must begin a new life, but how can he escape his past, and his enemy, Inspector Javert? This story for Bookworms is loosely based on the famous novel Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, one of France’s greatest writers. The novel was written in 1862, and the story has been retold many times – in a musical, in plays for radio and theatre, and in more than fifty…