"Jacqueline Woodson, one of today's finest writers, tells the moving story of her childhood in mesmerizing verse. Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and...

Chaucer's work begins at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, England, where a group of pilgrims have assembled on their way to Canterbury. Harry Bailly, the innkeeper, suggests a contest: whoever tells the best tale will win a supper when they reach Canterbury.

Following the unexpected death of her father, eighteen-year-old Layken is forced to be the rock for both her mother and her younger brother. Outwardly, she appears resilient and tenacious, but inwardly, she's losing hope. One young man brings change to all of this. After moving across the country, Layken meets her attractive twenty-one-year-old neighbor who has an intriguing passion for slams. Within days of their introduction, Will and Layken form...

A prose translation of Homer's classical account of the war between the Greeks and the Trojans from Agamemnon's visit by the priest Chryses to the burial of Hektor.

In Paradise Lost, Milton produced a poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos ranging across huge tracts of space and time. And yet, in putting a charismatic Satan and naked Adam and Eve at the center of this story, he also created an intensely human tragedy on the Fall of Man. Written when Milton was in his fifties blind, bitterly disappointed by the Restoration, and briefly in danger of execution, Paradise Lost's apparent ambivalence...

In Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, the eponymous Almustafa discusses topics such as life and the human condition with his followers before boarding a ship home. The 26 prose poetry fables that comprise the novel are influenced not only by his own Maronite religion but also by Islam, and the mysticism of the Sufis. Running through the text is a belief in the fundamental unity of religions. One of the best-selling poetry books of all time, it shares a...

Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855, began as Walt Whitman's collection of twelve unnamed poems, unique for their irregular line lengths and lack of rhyme. Whitman spent the remainder of his life re-writing the work, and republished the collection several times until it finally numbered over 400 poems. Leaves of Grass represents Whitman's views on life and philosophy, and love, and features some of his best known and loved poems including "O...

A transcendent journey about growth and healing, ancestry and honoring ones roots and expatriation, and rising up to find a home within yourself.

"The Newbery Award-winning author of The Crossover pens an ode to black American triumph and tribulation, with art from a two-time Caldecott Honoree"--

Themes: Adapted Classics, Low Level Classics, William Shakespeare, Fiction, Tween, Teen, Young Adult, Hi-Lo, Hi-Lo Books, Hi-Lo Solutions, High-Low Books, Hi-Low Books, ELL, EL, ESL, Struggling Learner, Struggling Reader, Special Education, SPED, Newcomers, Reading, Learning, Education, Educational, Educational Books. Timeless Shakespeare-designed for the struggling reader and adapted to retain the integrity of the original play. These classic plays...