A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Retold for Learners of English by Nick Bullard. Every town should have a ‘card’ – someone who gets talked about, someone who does mad and wonderful things, someone who makes you laugh. Bursley in the Five Towns has a ‘card’: Edward Henry Machin (Denry for short). Denry begins life in a poor little house where the rent is twenty-three pence a week. But before he’s thirty, he’s made a lot of money, and had more adventures than you and I have had hot dinners. The town of Bursley never stops talking about him. Whatever will young Denry do next?

A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Retold for Learners of English by Margaret Naudi. The human mind is a dark, bottomless pit, and sometimes it works in strange and frightening ways. That sound in the night . . . is it a door banging in the wind, or a murdered man knocking inside his coffin? The face in the mirror . . . is it yours, or the face of someone standing behind you, who is never there when you turn round? These famous short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, that master of horror, explore the dark world of the imagination, where the dead live and speak, where fear lies in every shadow of the mind . . .

A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Retold for Learners of English by Clare West. ‘I ran to the side of the ship. “Help, help! Murder!” I screamed, and my uncle slowly turned to look at me. I did not see any more. Already strong hands were pulling me away. Then something hit my head; I saw a great flash of fire, and fell to the ground . . .’ And so begin David Balfour’s adventures. He is kidnapped, taken to sea, and meets many dangers. He also meets a friend, Alan Breck. But Alan is in danger himself, on the run from the English army across the wild Highlands of Scotland . . .

A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. 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 had . . .

A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Retold for Learners of English by Diane Mowat. 'We must leave for Zenda at once, to find the King!' cried Sapt. 'If we're caught, we'll all be killed!' So Rudolf Rassendyll and Sapt gallop through the night to find the King of Ruritania. But the King is now a prisoner in the Castle of Zenda. Who will rescue him from his enemies, the dangerous Duke Michael and Rupert of Hentzau? And who will win the heart of the beautiful Princess Flavia?

A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Retold for Learners of English by John Escott. 'We have to leave our house in London,' Mother said to the children. 'We're going to live in the country, in a little house near a railway line.' And so begins a new life for Roberta, Peter, and Phyllis. They become the railway children - they know all the trains, Perks the station porter is their best friend, and they have many adventures on the railway line. But why has their father had to go away? Where is he, and will he ever come back?

A level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Written for Learners of English by Tim Vicary. He is not beautiful. His mother does not want him, children run away from him. People laugh at him, and call him 'The Elephant Man'. Then someone speaks to him - and listens to him! At the age of 27, Joseph Merrick finds a friend for the first time in his life. This is a true and tragic story. It is also a famous film.

Word count: 9,311 Suitable for young readers

A level 6 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. 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 satirical picture of English society during the Napoleonic wars.

A level 4 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Retold for Learners of English by Diane Mowat. ‘I like work. I find it interesting . . . I can sit and look at it for hours.’ With ideas like this, perhaps it is not a good idea to spend a holiday taking a boat trip up the River Thames. But this is what the three friends – and Montmorency the dog – decide to do. It is the sort of holiday that is fun to remember afterwards, but not so much fun to wake up to early on a cold, wet morning. This famous book has made people laugh all over the world for a hundred years . . . and they are still laughing.