Ten-year-old orphan Mary Lennox comes to live in a lonely house on the Yorkshire moors and discovers an invalid cousin and the mysteries of a locked garden.

Perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives, Twelve Years a Slave is a harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history. It recounts how Solomon Northup, born a free man in New York, was lured to Washington, D.C., in 1841 with the promise of fast money, then drugged and beaten and sold into slavery. He spent the next twelve years of his life in captivity on a Louisiana cotton plantation. After his rescue, Northup published...

Mark Twain's semi-autobiographical travel memoir, "Roughing It" was written between 1870-1871 and subsequently published in 1872. Billed as a prequel to "Innocents Abroad", in which Twain details his travels aboard a pleasure cruise through Europe and the Holy Land in 1867, "Roughing It" conversely documents Twain's early days in the old wild west between the years 1861-1867. Employing his characteristically humoristic wit and flare for regional dialect,...

Did you know that the world's first submarine traveled the Thames River in England way back in 1615? Or that early cars had three wheels instead of four? Get ready to learn the fascinating stories behind inventions you use every day. From the motorcycle inventor who died while riding his creation to the engineers who figured out a better way to launch humans into space, you'll find out how we got the transportation inventions that get us where we're...

Audisee® eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and text highlighting to engage reluctant readers! Did you realize that swimming suits used to weigh 22 pounds (about 10 kilograms)? Or that the first people to wear high heels were French royalty (even the king!) in the 1500s? Get ready to learn the amazing stories behind inventions you use every day. From the society woman who invented bras to the Swiss inventor who came up with the idea...

Do you know what happened when a kid forgot his glass of soda with a stir stick in it outside on a freezing cold night? Popsicles were invented! And did you know ancient people loved to chew on gum, just like we do? Get ready to learn the strange stories behind inventions you use every day. From the guy who thought white-flour snacks were evil so he invented graham crackers to the evolution of ketchup, you'll be amazed how we got the food inventions...

Can you believe that the first tennis balls didn't bounce? Or that the world's first basketball hoop was a peach crate? Get ready to learn the amazing stories behind inventions you use every day. From the Minnesota teen who invented water skis to the Missouri mechanic who came up with the idea of driving over cars with his monster pickup truck, you'll find out how we got some of our favorite entertainment inventions.

Do bulls get angry when they see the color red? Do plants grow by snacking on soil? Are bats blind? At one time, science supported wild notions like these! But later studies proved these ideas were nonsense. Discover science's biggest mistakes and oddest assumptions about plants and animals, and see how scientific thought changed over time.

EROSION: How Hugh Bennett Saved America's Soil and Ended the Dust Bowl When the dust storms of the 1930s threatened to destroy U.S. farming and agriculture, Hugh Bennett knew what to do. For decades, he had studied the soils in every state, creating maps showing soil composition nationwide. He knew what should be grown in each area, and how to manage the land to conserve the soil. He knew what to do for weathering and erosion. To do that, he...

Explore the history of the discovery and the properties of the proton, the positively charged subatomic particle that, with the neutron, makes up an atom's nucleus.