Diane Mowat Books

"The young Robinson Crusoe ignores his father's advice and decides to become a sailor. But Crusoe is soon caught up in violent storms and finds himself shipwrecked on a remote island. He will have to live on this island for the next twenty-eight years"--Back cover note

Dracula has been attributed to many literary genres including vampire literature, horror fiction, the gothic novel and invasion literature. Structurally it is an epistolary novel, that is, told as a series of diary entries and letters. Literary critics have examined many themes in the novel, such as the role of Victorian culture, conventional and conservative women sexuality, immigration, colonialism, postcolonialism and folklore. Although Stoker did not invent the vampire, the novel's influence on the popularity of vampires has been singularly responsible for many theatrical and film interpretations throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

This series of "Bookworms" offers younger readers the chance to enjoy lively and accessible adaptations of the best classic and modern fiction. Each title is highly illustrated to engage the reader in the world of the book and help with specific vocabulary.

The five children find a cantankerous sand fairy or 'psammead' in a gravel pit. Every day 'It' will grant each of them a wish that lasts until sunset, often with disastrous consequences.

Now The Children of Green Knowe and River at Green Knowe are available in one edition. Children of Green KnoweTolly's great grandmother isn't a witch, but both she and her old house, Green Knowe, are full of a very special kind of magic.

Part of a series designed to provide English language students at all levels of comprehension with the opportunity to extend their reading and appreciation of English, this adventure novel at Level 4 is set in Greece.

Matty is fifteen and is leaving school in a few weeks' time. He wants to work with animals, and would like to get a job on a farm. But his parents say he's too young to leave home - he must stay in the town and get a job in ship-building, like his father. They also say he can't go on a campingholiday with his friends. And they say he can't keep his dog, Nelson, because Nelson barks all day and eats his father's shoes. But it is because of Nelson that Matty finds a new life . . .

Reading a complete story in English gives students a great sense of achievement - and encourages them to read more. The books are graded at six vocabulary levels, ranging from 250 words (Starter) to 2,500 (Advanced). The activities pages at the back of each Bookworm are designed to helplearners derive maximum benefit and enjoyment from the story.

Rudolph Rassendyll's life is interrupted by his unexpected and personal involvement in the affairs of Ruritania whilst travelling through the town of Zenda. He is shortly on the way to Streslau, the capital, where he finds himself engaged in plans to rescue the imprisoned king.

'I did not intend to write a funny book, at first' wrote Jerome J. Jerome of Three Men in a Boat, which has since become a comic classic. When J. the narrator, George, Harris and Montmorency the dog set off on their hilarious misadventures, they can hardly predict the troubles that lie ahead with tow-ropes, unreliable weather-forecasts, imaginary illnesses, butter pats and tins of pineapple chunks. Denounced as vulgar by the literary establishment, Three Men in a Boat nevertheless caught the spirit of the times. The expansion of education and the increase in office workers created a new mass readership, and Jerome's book was especially popular among the 'clerking classes' who longed to be 'free from that fretful haste, that vehement striving, that is every day becoming more and more the bane of nineteenth-century life.' So popular did it prove that Jerome reunited his heroes for a bicycle tour of Germany. Despite some sharp, and with hindsight, prophetic observations of the country, Three Men on the Bummel describes an equally picaresque journey constrained only 'by the necessity of getting back within a given time to the point from which one started'.

This series of readers is aimed at students at 6 levels from elementary to advanced. All stages have exercises for classroom or private use, plus a glossary to help with vocabulary. The approximate vocabulary count for stage 1 is 400 words. This is a ghost story.

"If you wake up in the night and hear a tap running somewhere in the house, what to you do? You get up, of course, and go and turn the tap off. A little later you hear the tap running again. You are alone in the house, and you know you turned the tap off. What do you think? The ghosts in these stories all have unfinished business with the living world. They come back from the grave to continue their work, to keep a promise, to look for something they have lost. Sometimes they want to help people, sometimes they want to punish them - or kill them."--Back cover

This series of readers is aimed at students at 6 levels from elementary to advanced. All stages have exercises for classroom or private use, plus a glossary to help with vocabulary. This elementary level book features a collection of short stories from the American humourist, O. Henry.

When a group of English schoolchildren are told that they are to be in a tetrathlon (swimming, running, shooting and riding) against the perfect Greycoats school, they are totally unenthusiastic but rally when a teacher encourages them.

This series of readers is aimed at students at 6 levels from elementary to advanced. All stages have exercises for classroom or private use, plus a glossary to help with vocabulary. This is an advanced level work of fiction.

After the bleak depression of London in winter, Corfu seems like paradise to Lucy Waring. But this peace is soon to be shattered. Two incidents, seemingly unconnected, but both surrounded in mystery, throw her life into a dangerous spin

Suitable for younger learners Word count 5,310

Greg is a teenager with a problem - his father. After the death of Greg's mother in an accident, his father takes no interest in life at all. Greg tries hard to help him. His father is too old to rock and roll, of course . . . or is he? These short stories by Jan Mark look at life, love, and friendship through teenagers' eyes.

Suitable for younger learners Word count 5,310

CLASSIC FICTION (PRE C 1945). A historical romance, this novel tells of the adventures of the hot-headed young Gascon, d'Artagnan and his three companions Athos, Porthos and Aramis as they gallantly defend the Queen of France, using their wit and their swords.