A level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Written for Learners of English by Alex Raynham. 'What does the world look like from the moon?' 'How do our bodies work?' 'Is it possible for people to fly?' 'Can I make a horse of bronze that is 8 metres tall?' 'How can we have cleaner cities?' All his life, Leonardo da Vinci asked questions. We know him as a great artist, but he was one of the great thinkers of all time, and even today, doctors and scientists are still learning from his ideas. Meet the man who made a robot lion, wrote backwards, and tried to win a war by moving a river . . .

Word count: 7,033 Suitable for young readers

A level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Written for Learners of English by Anne Collins. 'Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.' More than fifty years ago, the new US President, John F. Kennedy, spoke these words. Millions of Americans listened, and they were filled with hope. With Kennedy as president, surely there was a great future ahead for their country. But Kennedy would not finish his four years as president. In November 1963, the world stopped as terrible news came from Dallas, Texas. . .

A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Written for Learners of English by Alex Raynham. You are fast asleep, and nothing is happening. Or is it? In fact, your body is hard at work. Your lungs are taking oxygen from the air, and your heart is pumping blood round your body. Millions of pieces of information are travelling backwards and forwards to your brain all the time. Muscles are repairing themselves, and in your lymph nodes special cells are cleaning germs and waste from the body. You may think that nothing is happening, but in the extraordinary machine that is the human body, it is very busy indeed . . .

Word count: 7,033 Suitable for young readers

Discover the life and work of Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci! Learn more about one of history's most creative geniuses — You might know that Leonardo da Vinci painted the famous Mona Lisa, but did you know he also wrote studies on mathematics and architecture, designed robots, and dreamed up numerous inventions, including an entire city and a machine that has been called the world's first automobile? Interactive activities with the full range of Leonardo's work — From his exquisite paintings and sculptures to his brilliant inventions and codes, there is something for everyone to enjoy in this immersive pop-up activity book. Flaps, cutouts, and pull tabs invite young readers and budding artists to engage in a hands-on exploration and even create their own ideal city. Collect the complete Meet the Artist! series: Alexander Calder Henri Matisse Pablo Picasso Vincent van Gogh Leonardo da Vinci

A TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction I. Thoughts on Life II. Thoughts on Art III. Thoughts on Science IV. Bibliographical Note

"For a child in the great city of Venice in the thirteenth century, there could be nothing better than the stories of sailors. There were stories of strange animals, wonderful cities, sweet spices, and terrible wild deserts where a traveller could die. One young boy listened and waited, and dreamed. Perhaps one day his father and uncle would return. Perhaps he could travel with them to great markets in faraway places. For young Marco Polo, later the greatest traveller of his time, a dangerous, exciting world was waiting..." --Back cover.

Supplementary teaching material for the Oxford Bookworms Factfiles.

A singular fatality has ruled the destiny of nearly all the most famous of Leonardo da Vinci's works. Two of the three most important were never completed, obstacles having arisen during his life-time, which obliged him to leave them unfinished; namely the Sforza Monument and the Wall-painting of the Battle of Anghiari, while the third—the picture of the Last Supper at Milan—has suffered irremediable injury from decay and the repeated restorations to which it was recklessly subjected during the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries. Nevertheless, no other picture of the Renaissance has become so wellknown and popular through copies of every description. Vasari says, and rightly, in his Life of Leonardo, "that he laboured much more by his word than in fact or by deed", and the biographer evidently had in his mind the numerous works in Manuscript which have been preserved to this day. To us, now, it seems almost inexplicable that these valuable and interesting original texts should have remained so long unpublished, and indeed forgotten. It is certain that during the XVIth and XVIIth centuries their exceptional value was highly appreciated. This is proved not merely by the prices which they commanded, but also by the exceptional interest which has been attached to the change of ownership of merely a few pages of Manuscript. That, notwithstanding this eagerness to possess the Manuscripts, their contents remained a mystery, can only be accounted for by the many and great difficulties attending the task of deciphering them. The handwriting is so peculiar that it requires considerable practice to read even a few detached phrases, much more to solve with any certainty the numerous difficulties of alternative readings, and to master the sense as a connected whole. Vasari observes with reference to Leonardos writing: "he wrote backwards, in rude characters, and with the left hand, so that any one who is not practised in reading them, cannot understand them". The aid of a mirror in reading reversed handwriting appears to me available only for a first experimental reading. Speaking from my own experience, the persistent use of it is too fatiguing and inconvenient to be practically advisable, considering the enormous mass of Manuscripts to be deciphered. And as, after all, Leonardo's handwriting runs backwards just as all Oriental character runs backwards—that is to say from right to left—the difficulty of reading direct from the writing is not insuperable. This obvious peculiarity in the writing is not, however, by any means the only obstacle in the way of mastering the text. Leonardo made use of an orthography peculiar to himself; he had a fashion of amalgamating several short words into one long one, or, again, he would quite arbitrarily divide a long word into two separate halves; added to this there is no punctuation whatever to regulate the division and construction of the sentences, nor are there any accents—and the reader may imagine that such difficulties were almost sufficient to make the task seem a desperate one to a beginner. It is therefore not surprising that the good intentions of some of Leonardo s most reverent admirers should have failed.