The speaker of the poem states that while a summer’s day fades away, the beauty of the addressee will not, as it is preserved in the lines of the sonnet.

This empowering poem by award-winning author Maya Angelou explores sexism, oppression, resilience and racism. Using a call and response technique, Angelou tells the story of a black woman fighting for equality and the right to self-expression by speaking up. The confident, female voice condemns harassment and inequalities against people of colour and loudly recalls that […]

The speaker tells the story of how he got a one-dollar bill from his father. He then happily traded this bill for two 25-cent coins because, clearly, two coins are worth more than one bill. After a few more trades he returns to his father, proudly showing him the five one-penny coins he acquired.

This educational poem explains how the outcome of anything depends on what one puts into it.

An autobiographical novel on racial segregation, identity, and hypocrisy. The white journalist J. H. Griffin retells the story of a remarkable experiment: In 1959 at the height of racial tensions, he uses a dermatological drug that darkens his skin – so he could pass as an African American. Griffin embarks on a six weeks’ journey […]

A dystopian novel on social inequality, manipulative tendencies in the media and autocratic governments. In the trilogy’s first part, 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen lives in District 12, which is part of a post-apocalyptic society controlled by a brutal regime. On the Day of Reaping each district offers two teenagers as ‘tributes’ to participate in the Hunger […]

A story about religion, struggle for survival and the relativity of truth. Yann Martel’s Life of Pi follows a young man who survives a shipwreck in a lifeboat with a large Bengal tiger – resisting hunger, thirst, fear and loneliness for 227 days. Growing up in India as a son of a zookeeper, “Pi” Patel studies […]

A young adult novel on corruption of power, violence and history repeating itself. After a documentary fails to make his students understand how fascism works, Ben Ross, a high school teacher, decides to conduct a social teaching experiment. Applying concepts of fascism to his group of students works more effectively than expected – Ben notices […]

A teenage-detective novel on high school culture, identity conflicts, bullying and peer pressure. Hannah has committed suicide. Shortly after, her classmate Clay receives a package with a set of audio tapes. While Clay works his way through the tapes, the reasons for what happened to Hannah are revealed and he begins to see life at […]

A detective story through the eyes of a teenage narrator – about abilities and disabilities, changes and challenges. Christopher is a 15-year old boy, on the autistic spectrum, who lives with his father in Swindon, England. After he discovers the body of his neighbour’s dog that was killed with a garden fork, he starts to […]

This Victorian Christmas tale follows Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly, bitter gentleman who despises the festive season and everything other people love about it. One Christmas Eve three ghosts visit him. With the intention to change his perspective, they show Mr Scrooge the Christmas Eves of the past, the present and the future – and thereby […]

This young adult fiction is the debut novel from the magical realist Harry Potter series. Harry is an orphan, living with his aunt and uncle and their son Dudley. He finds out that he is no ordinary boy at all, when on his 11th birthday he receives an invitation to the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft […]

A prototypical modernist short story with complex metaphors and imagery highlighting isolation and gender. The short story “Cat in the Rain” follows an American couple on vacation in postwar Italy. It features topics such as femininity, loneliness, longing and disappointment.

“Five Notes After a Visit” follows an unnamed, female narrator travelling from England to Northern Ireland (Belfast/Derry) – where she was born – to visit her boyfriend Stewart. During her visit, she experiences troubles, tensions and a trauma that she reflects upon in diary-like notes. The recommended edition Ireland – Changes and Challenges: Short Stories […]

A prototypical modernist short story with complex metaphors and imagery. Somewhere in northern Spain an American man and a young girl are having drinks at a bar in a train station. They are waiting for a train to Barcelona, where she is going to have an abortion. She seems to be afraid of the procedure, […]

This award-winning childhood classic follows the life cycle of a very hungry caterpillar that hatches from a tiny egg and eventually transforms into a beautiful butterfly after eating quantities of food. The story, which was adapted and translated in more than 60 languages covers vocabulary related to different kinds of fruit and food, the days of the week and counting up […]

A rhyming story about a clever little mouse taking a stroll in the deep, dark woods. To evade the dangerous animals (fox, owl, snake) it meets there, the little mouse invents a monstrous friend …and finally meets the “Gruffalo”.

The Mr. Men and Little Miss series introduces different title characters and their dominant character traits to convey a simple moral lesson. Together the characters experience adventures – e.g. in London, where they are on a busy tour through the city exploring its sights, including Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square and the Tower of London.