OXFORD BOOKWORMS LEVEL 3 (BOOK ONLY)

9780194791137

A Christmas Carol (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

Christmas is humbug, Scrooge says - just a time when you find yourself a year older and not a penny richer. The only thing that matters to Scrooge is business, and making money. But on Christmas Eve three spirits come to visit him. They take him travelling on the wings of the night to see the shadows of Christmas past, present, and future - and Scrooge learns a lesson that he will never forget.

 

9780194791403

A Cup of Kindness: Stories from Scotland (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

In Edinburgh a detective listens to a confession; in Orkney an old man lives with the ghosts of his past. In the Outer Hebrides some travellers learn a lesson; in Glasgow a young woman steals a meeting with a famous actor; and in a small town somewhere a pigeon dies. These stories are as richly varied as the land of Scotland itself. Bookworms World Stories collect stories written in English from around the world. This volume has stories by Scottish writers Eona Macnicol, Malcolm Laing, Ian Rankin, George Mackay Brown, and Susie Maguire.

 

9780194786133

A Midsummer Night's Dream (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

There are broken hearts and kisses and then weddings, so this is a story about love. There are actors who are funny because they cannot act, so it is also a story that makes people laugh. And there are fairies, spirits of the night, so it is a story about mischief and magic too. What happens when love and laughter come together with magic in an Athenian forest? A Midsummer Night's Dream was written in about 1596 and is one of Shakespeare's most popular plays. It has been retold for Bookworms, not as a play, but as a story.

 

9780194791250

A Pair of Ghostly Hands and Other Stories (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

If you wake up in the night and hear a tap running somewhere in the house, what do 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 do then? 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. 

 

9780194791083

As the Inspector Said and Other Stories (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

The murder plan seems so neat, so clever. How can it possibly fail? And when Sonia's stupid, boring little husband is dead, she will be free to marry her handsome lover. But perhaps the boring little husband is not so stupid after all... Murder plans that go wrong, a burglar who makes a bad mistake, a famous jewel thief who meets a very unusual detective... These five stories from the golden age of crime writing are full of mystery and surprises.

 

9780194791120

Chemical Secret (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

John Duncan was an honest man, but he needed money. He had children to look after. He was ready to do anything, and his bosses knew it. They gave him the job because he couldn't say no; he couldn't afford to be honest. And the job was like a poison inside him. It changed him and blinded him, so that he couldn't see the real poison - until it was too late. 

 

9780194791151

Ethan Frome (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

Life is always hard for the poor, in any place and at any time. Ethan Frome is a farmer in Massachusetts. He works long hours, but his farm makes little money. His wife, Zeena, is a thin, grey woman, always complaining, and only interested in her own ill health. Then Mattie Silver, a young cousin, comes to live with the Fromes, to help Zeena and do the housework. Her bright smile and laughing voice bring light and hope into the Fromes' house - and into Ethan's lonely life. But poverty is a prison from which few people escape...

 

9780194791168

Frankenstein (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

Victor Frankenstein thinks he has found the secret of life. He takes parts from dead people and builds a new 'man'. But this monster is so big and frightening that everyone runs away from him - even Frankenstein himself! The monster is like an enormous baby who needs love. But nobody gives him love, and soon he learns to hate. And, because he is so strong, the next thing he learns is how to kill...

 

9780194791175

Goldfish (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

The Leander pearls were stolen nineteen years ago. The thief was caught, but the pearls were never found, and there is still a $25,000 reward for anyone who finds them. Then somebody comes to private detective Carmady with a story about a guy who knows where the pearls are hidden. Carmady agrees to talk to the guy who says he knows. But he finds him dead in his bed, with burned feet, and it seems there are quite a lot of people in Los Angeles who have heard the story, and who are out looking for the Leander pearls...

 

9780194791199

Justice (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

London: November. Terrorists blow up the Queen's coach outside Parliament. The Queen escapes, but five 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. And for Alan and his daughter Jane there is more terror to come, in the search for the truth behind the bombing. Will the terrorists be caught and brought to justice? But what kind of justice? What can give Alan Cole his leg back, or give life back to people who have been blown to pieces by a bomb?

 

9780194791205

Kidnapped The Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751 (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

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... 

 

9780194791229

Love Story (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

This is a love story you won't forget. Oliver Barrett meets Jenny Cavilleri. He plays sports, she plays music. He's rich, and she's poor. They argue, and they fight, and they fall in love. So they get married, and make a home together. They work hard, they enjoy life, they make plans for the future. Then they learn that they don't have much time left. Their story has made people laugh, and cry, all over the world.

 

9780194791236

Moondial (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

Moondial!' As Minty spoke the word, a cold wind went past her, and her ears were filled with a thousand frightened voices. She shut her eyes and put her hands over her ears - and the voices and the wind went away. Minty opened her eyes... and knew that she was in a different morning, not the one she had woken up to. And so Minty's strange adventure begins - a journey through time into the past, where she finds Tom, and Sarah... and the evil Miss Vole.

 

9780194791243

On the Edge (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

When Tug wakes up, he is not in his own bedroom at home. The door is locked and there are bars across the window. Loud music hammers through the house and through his head. Then a woman comes in and says that she is his mother, but Tug knows that she is not his mother... Outside, Jinny stares through the trees at the lonely house on the hill. She hears strange noises, but she turns away. After all, it's none of her business...

 

9780194209304

Othello (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

Life is sweet for Othello. He is deeply in love with his new wife, Desdemona, and as the Duke's general, he is the most important person in Venice's army. But Othello does not know that his flag-bearer, Iago, hates him and wants revenge. As Iago begins to succeed with his clever plans, a frightening emotion takes hold of Othello's hear: will jealousy destroy him? This is one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies, retold here as a story, not a play.

 

9780194792844

Playing With Fire Stories from the Pacific Rim (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

He smiled, showing teeth yellow from cigarette smoke. He looked at his desk diary, then at her papers again. 'Mmm... a hundred pesos a month. Why, that's one thousand two hundred pesos a year. Surely, you can afford to buy me a forty-peso dinner!' How can Marina say no? How can she refuse the Chief's next request? He is an evil man, but she needs her promotion... These World Stories, from Tonga, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and New Zealand, are by Epeli Hau'ofa, Denise Whittaker, F. Sionil José, David A. Kulu, and Graeme Lay.

 

9780194791441

Rabbit-Proof Fence (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

Fourteen-year-old Molly and her cousins Daisy and Gracie were mixed-race Aborigines. In 1931 they were taken away from their families and sent to a camp to be trained as good 'white' Australians. They were told to forget their mothers, their language, their home. But Molly would not forget. She and her cousins escaped and walked back to Jigalong, 1600 kilometres away, following the rabbit-proof fence north as part of their guide across the desert. This is the true story of that walk, told by Molly's daughter, Doris. It is also a prize-winning film.

 

9780194791304

Skyjack! (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

When a large plane is hijacked, the Prime Minister looks at the list of passengers and suddenly becomes very, very frightened. There is a name on the list that the Prime Minister knows very well - too well. There is someone on that plane who will soon be dead - if the hijackers can find out who he is! And there isn't much time. One man lies dead on the runway. In a few minutes the hijackers will use their guns again. And the Prime Minister knows who they are going to kill. 

 

9780194791328

Tales of Mystery and Imagination (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

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... 

 

9780194791106

The Call of the Wild (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

When men find gold in the frozen north of Canada, they need dogs - big, strong dogs to pull the sledges on the long journeys to and from the gold mines. Buck is stolen from his home in the south and sold as a sledge-dog. He has to learn a new way of life - how to work in harness, how to stay alive in the ice and the snow... and how to fight. Because when a dog falls down in a fight, he never gets up again.

 

9780194791113

The Card (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

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?

 

9780194791144

The Crown of Violet (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

High up on a stone seat in the great open-air theatre of Athens, Alexis, son of Leon, watches the Festival of Plays - and dreams of seeing his own play on that famous stage. So, as the summer passes, Alexis writes his play for the next year's Festival. But then, with his friend Corinna, he learns that Athens has enemies - enemies who do not like Athenian democracy, and who are planning a revolution to end it all...

 

9780194786157

The Kiss: Love Stories from North America (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

Love stories with a difference... There's a kiss by a fireside that was a mistake, there's a man-hating aunt by the seaside, and a gunman in Texas wanting a fight. There's a white heron flying over a forest, and a messenger running between two benches in a park. And of course, there's a girl who meets a boy... These love stories are by US writers Kate Chopin, Stephen Crane, Sarah Orne Jewett, O. Henry, and Canadian writer Lucy Maud Montgomery (author of the famous Anne of Green Gables).

 

9780194791212

The Last Sherlock Holmes Story (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

For fifty years after Dr Watson's death, a packet of papers, written by the doctor himself, lay hidden in a locked box. The papers contained an extraordinary report of the case of Jack the Ripper and the horrible murders in the East End of London in 1888. The detective, of course, was the great Sherlock Holmes - but why was the report kept hidden for so long? This is the story that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never wrote. It is a strange and frightening tale... 

 

9780194793872

The Mysterious Death of Charles Bravo (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

Charles Bravo died from the poison antimony. He took three days to die, and the doctors could do nothing to help him. There were three people who had reasons for wanting Charles Bravo dead - Florence Bravo herself, Charles Bravo's new young wife; Dr James Gully, Florence's former lover; and Mrs Jane Cox, Florence's friend and companion. But the enquiry into the death in 1876 could not decide who the murderer was, and for more than 130 years people have wondered who did kill Charles Bravo... 

 

9780194791267

The Picture of Dorian Gray (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

When we are happy, we are always good,' says Lord Henry, 'but when we are good, we are not always happy.' Lord Henry's lazy, clever words lead the young Dorian Gray into a world where it is better to be beautiful than to be good; a world where anything can be forgiven - even murder - if it can make people laugh at a dinner party.

 

9780194791274

The Prisoner of Zenda (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

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?

 

9780194791281

The Railway Children (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

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? 

 

9780194791298

The Secret Garden (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

Little Mary Lennox is a bad-tempered, disagreeable child. When her parents die in India, she is sent back to England to live with her uncle in a big, lonely, old house. There is nothing to do all day except walk in the gardens - and watch the robin flying over the high walls of the secret garden... which has been locked for ten years. And no one has the key.

 

9780194791311

The Star Zoo (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

In our world today a hummingbird is a small, brilliantly coloured bird in tropical forests. In the far distant future, Hummingbird (Hummy for short) is a girl of sixteen who lives somewhere in the Galaxy, on a planet called Just Like Home. She has the name 'Hummingbird' in big letters on all her clothes, but she has never seen a real hummingbird. She has never seen any living animal or bird at all. The Book of Remembering says that there were once many animals on a planet called Earth, but that was before the Burning, a long, long time ago...

 

9780194791335

The Three Strangers and Other Stories (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

On a stormy winter night, a stranger knocks at the door of a shepherd's cottage. He is cold and hungry, and wants to get out of the rain. He is welcomed inside, but he does not give his name or his business. Who is he, and where has he come from? And he is only the first visitor to call at the cottage that night... In these three short stories, Thomas Hardy gives us pictures of the lives of shepherds and hangmen, dukes and teachers. But rich or poor, young or old, they all have the same feelings of fear, hope, love, jealousy... 

 

9780194791373

The Wind in the Willows (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

Down by the river bank, where the wind whispers through the willow trees, is a very pleasant place to have a lunch party with a few friends. But life is not always so peaceful for the Mole and the Water Rat. There is the time, for example, when Toad gets interested in motor-cars - goes mad about them in fact... The story of the adventures of Mole, Rat, Badger, and Toad has been loved by young and old for over a hundred years. 

 

9780194791342

Through the Looking-Glass (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

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... 

 

9780194791359

Tooth and Claw Short Stories (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

Conradin is ten years old. He lives alone with his aunt. He has two big secrets. The first is that he hates his aunt. The second is that he 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. This collection of short stories is clever, funny, and shows us 'Nature, red in tooth and claw'. In other words, it is Saki at his very best. 

 

9780194791366

Who, Sir? Me, Sir? (3rd edition) - Oxford Bookworms Library Level 3

Sam Sylvester is a teacher who wants his class to have ambition, and to do great things in life. So he enters them for a sporting competition against the rich students of Greycoats School. The team that he has chosen for the competition think Sam has gone crazy. 'Who, Sir? Me, Sir?' says little Hoomey, his eyes round with horror. 'We'll never beat Greycoats,' the others cry. 'Never in a million years!' But you don't know what you can do - until you try...