Books in Oxford Bookworms Library, Stage 2 series

Who wants to live in a house, wear clean clothes, be good, and go to school every day? Not young Huckleberry Finn, that's for sure.So Huck runs away, and is soon floating down the great Mississippi River on a raft. With him is Jim, a black slave who is also running away. But life is not always easy for the two friends.And there's 300 dollars waiting for anyone who catches poor Jim . . .

Sherlock Holmes is the greatest detective of them all. He sits in his room, and smokes his pipe. He listens, and watches, and thinks. He listens to the steps coming up the stairs; he watches the door opening - and he knows what question the stranger will ask. In these three of his best stories, Holmes has three visitors to the famous flat in Baker Street - visitors who bring their troubles to the only man in the world who can help them.

'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 acold, wet morning.This famous book has made people laugh all over the world for a hundred years . . . and they are still laughing.

'Suddenly, there was a high voice screaming in the darkness: "Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!" It was Long John Silver's parrot, Captain Flint! I turned to run . . .'But young Jim Hawkins does not escape from the pirates this time. Will he and his friends find the treasure before the pirates do? Will they escape from the island, and sail back to England with a ship full of gold?

It is hay-making time on the Wookey farm. Two brothers are building the haystack, but thinking about other things - about young women, and love. There are angry words, and then a fight between the brothers. But the work goes on, visitors come and go, and the long hot summer day slowly turns toevening.Then the sun goes down, covering the world with a carpet of darkness. From the hedges around the hayfield comes the rich, sweet smell of wild flowers, and the hay will make a fine, soft bed . . .

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 lights, and dogs, and guns.A man is standing in front of a desk. His boss is very angry, and the man is tired and needs to sleep. But first he must find the other man, and bring him back - dead or alive.Two men: the hunter and the hunted. Which will win and which will lose?Long live the President!

The wind is strong on the Yorkshire moors. There are few trees, and fewer houses, to block its path. There is one house, however, that does not hide from the wind. It stands out from the hill and challenges the wind to do its worst. The house is called Wuthering Heights.When Mr Earnshaw brings a strange, small, dark child back home to Wuthering Heights, it seems he has opened his doors to trouble. He has invited in something that, like the wind, is safer kept out of the house.

Richard is bored with the quiet life of his village. He would like to have a motor-car and drive it . . . very fast. But Richard lives in a future world where there are no cars, only bicycles and small villages and green forests.And now he is twelve years old, and like the other children, he must do his Year of Sharing. He must live alone in the forest with the wild animals. He must learn to share his world; he must learn how animals live and eat and fight . . . and die.

Do you believe in ghosts? Jerry doesn't. He's a nineteen-year-old American, who just wants a good holiday with his friend, Brad. They are travelling round the north of England by bicycle. But strange things begin to happen in the small hotel where they are staying. First, Brad seems to thinkthat he has been there before. And then a girl called Ellen appears . . .The first of these three original plays is set in the seventeenth century, and the other two take place in modern times. In each play, a ghost comes back from the dead to change the lives of living people.

Ellen Shore's family is an ordinary American family, and Ellen is six years old when her brother Al is born. Her parents are very pleased to have a son, but Ellen is not pleased, because now baby Al comes first.(br /)And when they are adults, Al still comes first. He begins a rock band andmakes records. Soon he is rich and famous - very rich, but he gives nothing to his sister Ellen. She has a difficult life, with three young kids and very little money. And she learns to hate her rich, famous, unkind brother . . .

Richard Walton is in trouble again. He has lost his job, and he has borrowed money from his sister, Jennifer - again. And now he has disappeared. Jennifer is looking for him, and so are the police. They both have some questions that they want to ask him.(br /)How did he lose his job? Why didhe fly to Frankfurt? Who gave his girlfriend those very expensive gold ear-rings?(br /)Only Richard can answer these questions. But nobody can find Richard.

'High above them, Lora and Clyde heard a sound their world had not heard for centuries - the thin scream of a starship coming in from outer space, leaving a long white tail like smoke across the clear blue sky. They looked at each other in wonder. After three hundred years of silence, Earth had reached out once more to touch Thalassa . . .' And with the starship comes knowledge, and love, and pain. In these five science-fiction stories Arthur C. Clarke takes us travelling through the universe into the unknown, but always possible future.