People Learn Productions Inc.

You're walking through the streets of London. You enter a narrow side-street. Everything is quiet, but as you pass a large, windowless building, you hear a key turning in the lock. A strange man comes out and looks at you. You realize immediately that he hates you. Who is this man that everybody hates? And why is he coming out of the laboratory of the very respectable Dr Jekyll?’

Oxford Bookworm Stage 4 (1400 words)

Richard Walton is in trouble again. He’s lost his job, and he’s borrowed money from his sister, Jennifer, again! Now he's disappeared. Jennifer is looking for him, and so are the police. They both have questions. How did he lose his job? Why did he fly to Frankfurt? Who gave his girlfriend those very expensive ear-rings?

Oxford Bookworm Stage 2 (700 words)

The Forfarshire was wrecked off the northeast coast of England in 1838. Were a man and his daughter stronger than the great waves that broke the ship in two? This is the true story of Grace Darling, a girl who became a famous heroine on that stormy night.

Oxford Bookworm Stage 2 (700 words)

Jane Eyre is a little girl with no parents.  Her aunt hates her and sends her to a terrible school.  However when she grows up, she falls in love and hopes she has found happiness at last.  But what is the mystery at Thornfield?  Can it destroy Jane's hopes?

Oxford Bookworm Stage 6 (2500 words)

Terrorists blow up the Queen's coach outside Parliament. The Queen escapes, but fi ve people are killed, and forty others badly hurt - ordinary, innocent people, like Alan Cole, the Queen's coachman, who loses his leg in the bombing. Will the terrorists be caught and brought to justice? What kind of justice?!

Oxford Bookworm stage 3 (1000 words)

Four people need her money. She will not give them the money so they are waiting for her to die. But one person can’t wait. And so on her fiftieth birthday, Molly Clarkson is going to die.

Oxford Bookworm Stage 1 (400 words)

Mary was Queen of Scotland at one week old. At sixteen, she was also Queen of France. She was tall and beautiful - Many men loved her and died for her. But she also had many enemies.

Oxford Bookworm Stage 1 (400 words)

It is night in the south seas near Tahiti, and the ship HMS Bounty has begun the long voyage home to England. But the sailors on the ship are angry men, and they have swords and guns.

Oxford Bookworm Stage 1 (400 words)

A housewife, a tramp, a lawyer, a waitress, an actress - ordinary people living ordinary lives in New York at the beginning of this century. O. Henry's famous short stories - sensitive, funny, sympathetic - give us vivid pictures of these New Yorkers.

Oxford Bookworm Stage 2 (700 words)

A beautiful young Indian girl, and a brave Englishman. A friendly smile, a laugh, a look of love…. But this is North America in 1607, and love is not easy. The girl is the daughter of King Powhatan.  This is the famous story of Pocahontas, and her love for the white Englishman John Smith.

Oxford Bookworm Stage 1 (400 words)

In a hole under the floorboards Silas Marner, the linen-weaver, keeps his gold. Every night he takes the gold out and holds the bright coins lovingly, feeling them and counting them again and again. ..Only the gold is his friend, his delight, his reason for living. But what if a thief should come in the night and take his gold away?

Oxford Bookworm Stage 4 (1400 words)

When a large plane is hijacked, the Prime Minister looks at the list of passengers and suddenly becomes very, very frightened.  There isn't much time. One man lies dead on the runway. In a few minutes the hijackers will use their guns again.

Oxford Bookworm Stage 3 (1000 words)

These famous short stories by Edgar 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….

Oxford Bookworm Stage 3 (1000 words)

Close to the wild beauty of the Yorkshire moors, a father brought up his young family. Three of the sisters had an extraordinary gift. They could write marvelous stories – Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey… Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte did not live to grow old. Only their father’s memories were left.

Oxford Bookworm Stage 3 (1000 words)

In the summer of 1910, a race began. A race to be the first man at the South Pole, in Antarctica. But antarctica is the coldest place on earth, and it is a long, hard journey over the ice to the South Pole. This is the story of Scott and Amundsen, and of one of the most famous and dangerous races in history.

Oxford Bookworm Stage 1 (400 words)

This is the story of Karen Silkwood. It begins with her death. Karen Silkwood had something to tell us, and she believed that it was important. Why didn't she live to tell us? Will we ever know what really happened?

Oxford Bookworm Stage 2 (700 words)

He is not beautiful. His mother does not want him, children run away from him. 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.

Oxford Bookworm Stage 1 (400 words)

Oh, how delightful it is to fall in love for the first time! How exciting to go to your first dance when you are a girl of eighteen! But life can also be hard and cruel, if you are a child from the wrong social class. Set in Europe and New Zealand, these nine stories by Katherine Mansfield dig deep beneath the appearances of life to show us the causes of human happiness and despair.

Oxford Bookworm Stage 5 (1800 words)

Everybody wants to win the lottery. Perhaps five million pounds.  Emma Carter buys a ticket for the lottery every week, and puts the ticket carefully in her bag. She is seventy-three years old and does not have much money. She would like to visit her son in Australia.  Jason Williams buys lottery tickets every week too. He hits old ladies in the street, snatches their bags and runs away…

Oxford Bookworm Stage 1 (400 words)

It was a love story that shook the world. The king had to choose: to be a king, or to have love ... and leave his country, never to return.  The famous story of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

Oxford Bookworm Stage 2 (700 words)

The room was on the fourth floor, and the door was locked - with the key on the inside.  The windows were closed and the chimney was too narrow.  How did the murderer escape? Whose were the two angry voices heard by the neighbours? Nobody in Paris could find any answers.  Except Auguste Dupin.

Oxford Bookworm Stage 2 (700 words) Graded Vocabulary System

The famous romance/mystery story of the Phantom’s tragic love for a young and beautiful opera singer, and his ghostly reign of terror over the dancers, directors and stage workers of the Paris Opera House.

Oxford Bookworm Stage 1 (400 words)

In the middle of all the rubbish, the boy finds a beautiful old piano.  He has never played before, but now, when his fingers touch the piano, he begins to play.

Oxford Bookworm Stage 2 (700 words)

The President is dead! A man is running in the night. He is afraid and needs to rest. But there are people behind him - people with The President's Murderer.

Oxford Bookworm Stage 1 (400 words)

In the far distant future, Hummingbird is a girl of sixteen who lives somewhere in the Galaxy, on a planet called Just Like Home. She has never seen a real hummingbird. The Book of Remembering says that there were once many animals on a planet called Earth, but that was before the Burning ....

Oxford Bookworm Stage 3 (1000 words)

‘Richard is bored with the quiet life of his village. He lives in a future world where there are no cars, only bicycles and small villages and green forests. He is twelve years old, and like the other children, he must do his Year of Sharing. He must learn to share his world;he must learn how animals live and eat and fight….and die.’

Oxford Bookworm Stage 2 (700 words)

Conradin keeps a small wild animal in the garden shed. The animal has sharp, white teeth and it loves fresh blood. Every night Conradin prays to this animal and asks it to do one thing for him, just one thing.

Oxford Bookworm Stage 3 (1000 words)

It is the year 2522, and the planet Earth is dying. The Artificial Ozone Layer is only 300 years old, but it is breaking up fast. Now the sun is burning down on Earth with a white fire. There is no water. Without water, nothing can live. Trees die, plants die, animals die, people die.

Oxford Bookworm Stage 1 (400 words)

Mr James Conway wants to make money. He wants to build new houses and shops - and he wants to build them on an old graveyard in Haiti. When he starts to build his houses, he makes the terrible mistake of disturbing the sleep of the dead!

Oxford Bookworm stage 2 (700 words)

Sarah is nineteen and she is in prison. She says she did not do it. But if she did not, who did? Only two people can help her. Her mother and an old boyfriend who does not love her now. Can they find the real criminal?

Oxford Bookworm Stage 1 (400 words) Graded Reading System

When Mr. Earnshaw brings a strange, small, dark child back home to Wuthering Heights, it seems he has opened his doors to trouble.  This classic love story is told in its abridged form.

Oxford Bookworm Stage 5 (1800 words)