The Jungle Book

The well-known book The Jungle Book came into its own as one of the animated highlights of the Disney empire. It was published in 1894, and its sequel The Second Jungle Book came a year later during the time when Kipling was ensconced at Brattleboro in Vermont. The story tells of the child Mowgli who is a foundling brought up by wolves. He learns over time and due to the instructions of various animal mentors the rules or ‘Laws’ of the jungle. Key figures are the wise black panther, Bagheera, and Baloo the sleepy bear. Both of these friendly beasts contribute to the child’s education. We learn about the great enmity between Mowgli and the tiger Shere Khan who killed the boy’s parents. Like Just So Stories (1902) it portrays the natural world and especially its creatures in a logical anthropomorphized manner, entertaining to adult and child alike. The simplicity of the concept and the lack of didactic moral overtones have made The Jungle Book a lasting influence on the young.

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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

The narrator, a mannered Easterner, describes his visit to a mining camp where, on behalf of a friend, he is searching for one Leonidas W. Smiley. He stops in an old tavern, where he meets "goodnatured, garrulous" old Simon Wheeler, who cannot recall a Leonidas Smiley, but does remember a Jim Smiley who lived in the camp around 1849 or 1850. Without prompting, Wheeler launches into an extended narrative about the gambler Smiley and his exploits. Smiley, he says, was "uncommon lucky," and had a reputation for betting on anything he could: horse races, dog fights, and even which of two birds sitting on a fence would fly first. His broken-down old nag somehow always managed to win races when Smiley bet on her. His bullpup, Andrew Jackson, also won all its fights. Smiley also owned rat terriers, chicken cocks, and tom-cats, and wagered on all of them—and won.

Smiley, Wheeler goes on, once caught a frog, which he named Dan'l Webster, and trained him to jump. And that frog was a remarkable jumper, beating out any frog brought from near and far to challenge him. One day a stranger came to the mining camp and, on seeing Smiley's frog, remarked he didn't see anything unusual about it. Smiley wagered $40 that his frog could outjump any other in Calaveras County. Since the stranger had no frog, Smiley went out to find him one. In Smiley's absence, the stranger pried open Dan'l Webster's mouth and filled it with quail-shot. When Smiley brought the new frog to challenge Dan'l, it hopped off, but Dan'l couldn't budge. The stranger took his $40 in winnings and remarked again that he really could not see any special points about Smiley's frog. When Smiley examined his frog and realized what had happened, he took off after the stranger, but never caught him.

At this point in the narrative, Wheeler is called outside. When he returns, he begins a new anecdote about Smiley's tail-less, one-eyed cow, but the narrator, sure he will not learn anything about Leonidas W. Smiley from another "interminable narrative," does not have the patience to listen to it, and departs.

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Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver’s Travels is an adventure story (in reality, a misadventure story) involving several voyages of Lemuel Gulliver, a ship’s surgeon, who, because of a series of mishaps en route to recognized ports, ends up, instead, on several unknown islands living with people and animals of unusual sizes, behaviors, and philosophies, but who, after each adventure, is somehow able to return to his home in England where he recovers from these unusual experiences and then sets out again on a new voyage.

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The Gift of the Magi

The Gift of the Magi is an O. Henry short story in which a young couple are very much in love with each other but can barely afford their one-room apartment. For Christmas, they each make a sacrifice to purchase a gift for the other, with ironic results.

The moral of the story is that physical possessions, however valuable they may be, are of little value in the grand scheme of things. The true unselfish love that the characters, Jim and Della, share is greater than their possessions.

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Call of the Wild

A gripping, fast-paced tale of adventure, The Call of the Wild focuses on Buck, a pampered sheepdog stolen from a California ranch and transported to the arctic.
Buck's struggle to survive on the arctic trail demonstrates the precarious nature of life in the wild.
Although The Call of the Wild is an engaging animal story, the reader cannot help but draw parallels between Buck's experience and that of humans. The book suggests that environment shapes character, and emphasizes that primitive instincts—often hidden beneath a veneer of civilization—are never lost to the individual. Providing a fascinating glimpse of a way of life that has almost vanished, The Call of the Wild suggests that creatures survive best when they adapt to the natural world, rather than trying to impose change on their environment.

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At the Back of North Wind

This is a story of a poor stable boy living in Victorian London in which everyday lives are mysteriously enveloped by a power and a glory, personified here as a beautiful woman known as the North Wind. She visits the small boy, Diamond, and takes him with her on her journeys, teaching him about herself. Through the eyes of an innocent and yet perceptive child, MacDonald explores North Wind as a way of exploring the place of death in our lives. He looks squarely at social injustice--he knew poverty and the poor first hand--and yet also sees that the deepest need we have is for love and forgiveness, which are rooted in eternity. This book is written by Elizabeth Lewis & George MacDonald.

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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn consists of 43 chapters and is told in the first person with Huck Finn telling the story. The book divides into three sections. The first sections has Huck living his Miss Watson and her sister in civilization. During the second section, Huck travels down the river with Jim. In the last section, Huck returns to civilization and lives with Tom in Uncle Silas’ farm. An organizational object in the book is the river which serves as a timeline for the book.
The first section introduces Huck and his current life living with Miss Watson and Later with his father. This section ends were Huck fakes his death and flees to Jackson Island.
In the second section, Huck meets Jim at the island and starts down the river when they find out that Jim is being searched for. Huck runs from civilization and Jim runs from slavery. This section ends when both Jim and Huck make it to Uncle Silas’ farm.
The third sections takes place at the farm and continues to the end of the book.
Although the book divides itself into three sections, it does not divide itself to neatly into rising action, climax and conclusion since the book consists of several adventures with its own rising action, climax, and conclusion. It is difficult to label a single point as the climax.
The book clearly starts with the exposition where Huck introduced himself as a character from Tom Sawyer and the son of a town drunk. He lived with Widow Douglas and her sister, Miss Watson. However, Huck did not like the civilized life and would rather live an easy going life. Huck’s father finds out that Huck has some money and kidnaps him into a shack by the river. Pap beats Huck and Huck decides that he must escape. Huck fakes his death and flees to Jackson Island. On the island, he meets Jim, Miss Watson’s runaway slave. This is the rising action.
When the find that there are men on the island searching for Jim, they decide to travel down the Mississippi river and up the Ohio river into the free states. On the river, they live an easy life as they travel during the night and hide during the day. Traveling down the river, the have many adventures, but they miss the turnoff into the Ohio River in the climax. Some of the adventures include the family feud between the Grangerford and Shephersons. Later they meet two con artists who call themselves the Duke and the King. They have several adventures with the Duke and the King. However, since they are low on money, the Duke and King sell Jim as a runaway slave to the Phelps. Huck goes to the Phelps and pretends he is Sid Sawyer, their nephew. Tom later comes and pretends he is Huck Finn. There, they try to rescue Jim but fails, only to have Tom tell them that Jim was already free. At the conclusion of the book, Huck decides to head off into new territory since he does not like the civilized society.

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Around the World in 80 Days

Phileas Fogg bets half his fortune against other members of the Reform Club he can travel around the world in 80 days or less. He leaves with his valet, is followed by a detective who believes Fogg robbed the Bank of England, and picks up an Indian Princess along the way. He believes he lost the bet (and spent the other half of his fortune during the journey), but forgot that since he travelled east, he picked up a day. He arrives at the Reform Club with seconds to spare, and wins his bet.

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Anne of Green Gables

Miss Marilla Cuthbert and Mr. Matthew Cuthbert, elderly siblings who live together at Green Gables in Avonlea, on Prince Edward Island, decide to adopt an orphan boy from the asylum as a helper on their farm. Through a series of mishaps, what ends up under their roof is a precocious girl of eleven named Anne Shirley. Anne is bright and quick, eager to please but dissatisfied with her pale countenance dotted with freckles, and with her long braids of red hair. Being a child of imagination, however, Anne takes much joy in life, and adapts quickly, thriving in the environment of Prince Edward Island. This book is written by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

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A Little Princess

A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett is described here. "Sara Crewe's beloved father, Captain Crewe, sends her to a boarding school in London. He returns to India, loses all of his wealth, and dies. Sara is devastated, and to make matters worse, the newly orphaned girl is treated like a servant by Miss Minchin, the school's greedy headmistress. The little girl's strength of spirit prevails, and she becomes and inspiration to everyone she encounters." Judy Berman, Resident Scholar

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A Christmas Carol

Ebenezer Scrooge is a penny-pinching miser in the first degree. He cares nothing for the people around him and mankind exists only for the money that can be made through exploitation and intimidation. He particularly detests Christmas which he views as 'a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer'. Scrooge is visited, on Christmas Eve, by the ghost of his former partner Jacob Marley who died seven Christmas Eves ago.

Marley, a miser from the same mold as Scrooge, is suffering the consequences in the afterlife and hopes to help Scrooge avoid his fate. He tells Scrooge that he will be haunted by three spirits. These three spirits, the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, succeed in showing Scrooge the error of his ways. His glorious reformation complete, Christmas morning finds Scrooge sending a Christmas turkey to his long-suffering clerk, Bob Cratchit, and spending Christmas day in the company of his nephew, Fred, whom he had earlier spurned.

Scrooge's new-found benevolence continues as he raises Cratchit's salary and vows to assist his family, which includes Bob's crippled son, Tiny Tim. In the end Dickens reports that Scrooge became ' as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew'.

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