Books published by publisher Readabook

"Just So Stories" is a collection of origin stories by the British author Rudyard Kipling. Considered a classic of children's literature, the book is among Kipling's best known works.Kipling began working on the book by telling the first three chapters as bedtime stories to his daughter Josephine. These had to be told "just so" (exactly in the words she was used to) or she would complain. The stories describe how one animal or another acquired its most distinctive features, such as how the leopard got his spots. For the book, Kipling illustrated the stories himself.The stories have appeared in a variety of adaptations including a musical and animated films.Just so Stories:- How the Whale Got His Throat- How the Camel Got His Hump- How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin- How the Leopard Got His Spots- The Elephant's Child- The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo- The Beginning of the Armadillos- How the First Letter Was Written- How the Alphabet Was Made- The Crab That Played with the Sea- The Cat That Walked by Himself- The Butterfly That Stamped

"Little Women" is a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888), which was originally published in 1868 and 1869. Following the lives of the four March sisters — Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy — the novel details their passage from childhood to womanhood and is loosely based on the author and her three sisters.The novel addressed three major themes: domesticity, work, and true love, all of them interdependent and each necessary to the achievement of its heroine's individual identity. "Little Women" has been read as a romance or as a quest, or both. It has been read as a family drama that validates virtue over wealth, but also as a means of escaping that life by women who knew its gender constraints only too well. Alcott created a new form of literature, one that took elements from Romantic children's fiction and combined it with others from sentimental novels, resulting in a totally new format.Alcott wrote two sequels to her popular work, both of which also featured the March sisters: "Little Men" (1871) and "Jo's Boys" (1886).

"Jack the Giant Killer" is an English fairy tale and legend about a young adult who slays a number of bad giants.The tale is set during the reign of King Arthur and tells of a young Cornish farmer's son named Jack who is not only strong but so clever he easily confounds the learned with his penetrating wit.Giants are prominent in Cornish folklore, Breton mythology and Welsh Bardic lore. Some parallels to elements and incidents in Norse mythology and the trappings of Jack's last adventure suggest parallels with French and Breton fairy tales. Jack's belt is similar to the belt in "The Valiant Little Tailor", and his magical sword, shoes, cap, and cloak are similar to those found in Welsh and Norse mythology.This fairy tale has numerous theatre and movie adaptations.

Charles PerraultThe Tales of the Mother Goose1901 eddition, illustratedStories:CINDERELLA, OR THE LITTLE GLASS SLIPPERTHE SLEEPING BEAUTY IN THE WOODSLITTLE THUMBTHE MASTER CAT, OR PUSS IN BOOTSRIQUET WITH THE TUFTBLUE BEARDTHE FAIRYLITTLE RED RIDING-HOODThe eight stories contained in this volume are first found in print in French in a magazine entitled, Receuil de pièces curieuses et nouvelles tant en prose qu'en vers, which was published by Adrian Moetjens at The Hague in 1696-1697. They were immediately afterward published at Paris.These stories which may be said to be as old as the race itself—certainly their germs are to be found in the oldest literature and among the oldest folk-tales in the world—were orally current in France and the neighboring countries in nearly the form in which Perrault wrote them for very many years.Perrault says of his collection that it is certain these stories excite in the children who read them the desire to resemble those characters who become happy, and at the same time they inspire them with the fear of the consequences which happen to those who do ill deeds; and he claims that they all contain a very distinct moral which is more or less evident to all who read them.

1917 - the first - edition, illustrated"The Son of Tarzan" is a novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the fourth in his series of books about the title character Tarzan.Alexis Paulvitch, a henchman of Tarzan’s now-deceased enemy, Nikolas Rokoff, survived his encounter with the ape-man in "The Beasts of Tarzan" and wants to even the score. He lures Jack, Tarzan’s son, away from London and into his clutches, but the youngster escapes with the help of the ape named Akut.The pair then flees into the deep African jungle where two decades earlier Tarzan himself had been raised. Jack Clayton, now on his own, becomes known as Korak the Killer and builds a reputation for himself in the jungle. Like his father before him, he finds his own place among the great apes, and also like his father, meets and rescues a beautiful young woman, Meriem.Edgar Rice Burroughs's epic story of love and adventure is well-adapted here for the reader and is a must read book for every fiction and adventure fan.

1906 edition, illustrated by Wallace Goldsmith"The Canterville Ghost" is a novella by Oscar Wilde. It has been adapted for the stage and screen several times.This is a story is about an American family who move to a castle haunted by the ghost of a dead nobleman, who killed his wife and was starved to death by his wife's brothers.It was the first of Wilde's stories to be published, appearing in 1887. The story did not immediately receive much critical attention, and indeed Wilde was not viewed as an important author until the publication, during the 1890s, of his novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1891) and of several well-received plays, including "The Importance of Being Earnest" (1895). In “The Canterville Ghost,” Wilde draws upon fairy tales, Gothic novels, and stories of Americans abroad to shape his comic ghost story. One of the major themes in the story is the culture clash between a sixteenth-century English ghost and a late nineteenth-century American family. But the story also examines the disparity between the public self and the private self, a theme to which Wilde would return again in his later writings.

1900 (the first) edition, illustrated by Kate GreenwayFull title "The April Baby’s Book of Tunes with the story of how they came to be written"This book contains lovely illustrations, it depicts a mother who entertain her 2 young girls teaching them English from nursery rhymes and tunes.* * *Elizabeth von Arnim (1866 – 1941), born Mary Annette Beauchamp, was an Australian-born British novelist. By marriage she became Countess von Arnim-Schlagenthin, and after her second marriage she was styled as Elizabeth Russell, Countess Russell. She is the author of "Elizabeth and Her German Garden" and "Enchanted April".

1923 (the first) edition, illustrated"Tarzan and the Golden Lion" is an adventure novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the ninth in his series of books about the title character Tarzan. It was first published as a seven part serial in a weekly beginning in December 1922; and then as a complete novel on March 24, 1923.The story is about Clayton family, Tarzan, Jane Porter and their son Korak. They find an orphaned lion cub, which Tarzan takes home and trains. A villain had managed to copy the map of the lost city of Opar. Two years passed since the Clayton family picked up their lion cub Tarzan's estate had become financially depleted so he returns to Opar. He meets villain's party and ends up in the hands of the Oparians. Queen La felt she had nothing to lose by escaping with Tarzan through the only unguarded route—a path to the legendary valley of diamonds, from which no one had ever returned. There, Tarzan found a race of humans who were little better than animals in intelligence, being enslaved by a race of intelligent gorillas. With the help of his golden lion Jad-bal-ja, Tarzan used the natives to restore La to power. Tarzan eventually confronts the villains and, as always, wins.

1901 (the first) edition, illustrated"Kim" is a novel by Nobel Prize-winning English author Rudyard Kipling. "Kim" is listed on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's "best-loved novel."Book is considered by many to be Kipling's masterpiece, one of the best stories in English about India.It is a tale of adventure, a drama of a boy, a mystical story that unfolds against the backdrop of "The Great Game", the political conflict between Russia and Britain in Central Asia. Story is set after the Second Afghan War (ended 1881). Kim (Kimball O'Hara) is the orphaned son of an Irish soldier and a poor Irish mother, living a vagabond existence in India under British rule in the late 19th century. Kim earns his living by begging and running small errands on the streets of Lahore. He becomes lama's disciple, is trained as an English spy, travels around the India, performs spy missions.