Classics

Around the World in 80 Days

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This travel adventure novel by Jules Verne was published serially in 1872 and in book form in 1873 The lively and amusing narrative recounts the journey pursued by a sedentary London gentleman named Phileas Fogg and his valet, Passepartout, to win a wager with Fogg's fellow club members. Pursued by Fix, a private detective who believes Fogg to be a bank robber, the duo cross three continents and two oceans on trains, steamers, an elephant, and a sail-sledge.

Tarzan of the Apes

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First published in 1914, this romantic novel has remained influential over the years, both as a book and in films and a television series. The reader must recognize that Tarzan is a product of its age and contains outmoded imagery and simplistic depictions of other cultures and species: bloodthirsty natives, chatty chimps, roaring lions, stalking beasts. In some respects Tarzan is a caricature of itself and life in an African jungle.

The Time Machine

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The Time Machine was published in 1895 and quickly established Wells not only as an able writer, but a thinker of unusual ideas. Wells is perhaps the original writer of science fiction (alongside Jules Verne) and this novel is characteristic of his use of technology, imagination, and clever plotting to make the unthinkable seem plausible to the ordinary reader.

Robinson Crusoe

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Based loosely on the true story of the real-life sailor Alexander Selkirk, Defoe's classic tale of human strength and survival in the face of a hostile and lonely world can be understood on many different levels. Defoe is a figure for all times, either alone as he is literally stripped bare to confront the basic elements of life, or with “his man” Friday, who joins Crusoe after 26 years of solitariness. Defoe's work is both suitable and meaningful for readers of all ages.

To Kill a Mockingbird

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Harper Lee's classic novel of a lawyer in the deep south defending a black man charged with the rape of a white girl.

Author:

Harper Lee

Grade Level:

High

Length:

12:00

The Metamorphosis

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"When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin." With this startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first sentence, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis.

Author:

Franz Kafka

Grade Level:

High

Lexile:

1320L

Length:

02:15

Little Women (Unabridged)

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Most people know this book from the Academy Award-winning motion picture starring Winona Ryder. Now, introduce them to the sparkling American classic behind the movie: a charming portrait of the joys and hardships of the four sisters in Civil War New England. Separated by the war from their beloved parents, these "little women" struggle to find their place in the world.

Author:

Louisa May Alcott

Grade Level:

High

Lexile:

1300L

Length:

19:38

The Witch of Blackbird Pond (Unabridged)

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Orphaned Kit Tyler knows, as she gazes for the first time at the cold, bleak shores of Connecticut Colony, that her new home will never be like the shimmering Caribbean islands she left behind. In her relatives' stern Puritan community, she feels like a tropical bird that has flown to the wrong part of the world, a bird that is now caged and lonely.

Author:

Elizabeth George Speare

Grade Level:

Middle

Lexile:

850L

Length:

06:34

The Witch of Blackbird Pond (Unabridged)

The Swiss Family Robinson (Unabridged)

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After the Robinsons - a minister, his wife, and their 4 young sons - are shipwrecked on a desert island, they must adapt to their new environment, which includes exotic birds and animals, but none of the comforts they enjoyed in their native Switzerland.

Author:

Johann Wyss

Grade Level:

Elementary

Lexile:

820L

Length:

10:35