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The Hound of the Baskervilles (graphic novel)

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The Hound of the Baskervilles (graphic novel)

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When Sir Charles Baskerville dies in mysterious circumstances, the world's greatest detective is called in to investigate.

Sherlock Holmes must use all his powers of deduction if he is to solve the blood-curdling mystery of the terrifying Hound of the Baskervilles.

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The History of Britain: The Definitive Visual Guide

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The History of Britain: The Definitive Visual Guide

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Look for the pages on the Victorian Era - Industry and Empire pp248 - 312

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A Christmas Carol: The Graphic Novel (original text version)

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A Christmas Carol: The Graphic Novel (original text version)

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This is the classic novel brought to life in full colour! 'I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future'. Classical Comics' first Dickens title is probably his best-loved story. Scrooge gets a rude awakening to how his life is, and how it should be.
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A spectacular and engaging non-fiction Eyewitness guide to one of history's most fascinating periods, the Victorian era.

What did the Victorians invent? Was this a peaceful era? How many children did Queen Victoria have? Find out in Eyewitness Victorians and discover this peaceful and prosperous era which produced huge developments in technology and engineering, alongside voting reforms.

Eyewitness reference books are now more interactive and colourful, with new infographics, statistics, facts and timelines, plus a giant pull-out wall chart, you'll be an expert on the Victorian era in no time.

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A terrifying encounter with an escaped convict in a graveyard on the wild Kent marshes; a summons to meet the bitter, decaying Miss Havisham and her beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella; the sudden generosity of a mysterious benefactor - these form a series of events that change the orphaned Pip's life forever, and he eagerly abandons his humble origins to begin a new life as a gentleman.

Dickens's haunting late novel depicts Pip's education and development through adversity as he discovers the true nature of his 'great expectations'.
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This site has lots of interesting information about Dickens and Victorian society.

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Cratchit Family Christmas

The Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass. Two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:(
'A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us.' Which all the family re-echoed. 'God bless us every one.' said Tiny Tim, the last of all Christmas Books, p. 47).

A Christmas Carol

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Charles Dickens Holiday Short Stories

Read Dickens' first Christmas sketch describing a family Christmas at the home of Uncle and Aunt George where many of the themes of A Christmas Carol are foreshadowed. Originally published in Bell's Life of London - 1835 and later included in Sketches by Boz.

Read Dickens' short sketch describing a New Year's Eve party. Originally published in Bell's Life of London - 1836 and later included in Sketches by Boz.

Charles Dickens' Christmas Books

Learn more about the books Dickens wrote for Christmas between 1843 and 1848

Charles Dickens Christmas Links

The Novels: A Christmas Carol
The Great Dickens Christmas Fair The Great Dickens Christmas Fair The Victorian Web - A Christmas Carol
The Second Greatest Christmas Story Ever Told - By Thomas J. Burns (Originally published in Reader's Digest, December 1989)

Gerald Dickens

A Christmas Carol (2020)

Charles Dickens' great great grandson, Gerald Dickens, brings his spirited one-man show to video.

View the trailer | Rent the video

Smoking Bishop

At the end of ( A Christmas Carol, Scrooge proposes that he and Bob Cratchit will discuss all that Scrooge will do for Bob's family later that afternoon " over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop" Christmas Books-A Christmas Carol, p. 76)

In his notes for the 1907 edition of ( A Christmas Carol E. Gordon Browne describes this Christmas punch:
" The drink is made by pouring red wine, either hot or cold, upon ripe bitter oranges. The liquor is heated or 'mulled' in a vessel with a long funnel, which could be pushed far down into the fire. Sugar and spices (chiefly cloves, star anise, and cinnamon) are added according to taste. It is sometimes called 'purple wine' and received the name 'Bishop' from its colour" Browne, 1907, as cited in Hearn, 2004, p. 158 n. 15).

Cooking the Cratchit's Christmas Goose

The homes of the poor were equipped with open fireplaces for heat and cooking but not with ovens. Thus many, like the Cratchits, took their Christmas goose or turkey to the baker's shop. Bakers were forbidden to sell on Sundays and holidays but would open their shops on these days to the poor and bake their dinners for a small fee. Dickens tells of Master Peter Cratchit and the two younger Cratchits going to fetch their Christmas goose from the bakers ( Hearn, 2004, p. 91 n. 28).

Christmas Plum Pudding

The famous plum pudding that Mrs Cratchit makes to crown the (( Cratchit Christmas dinner was not made of plums, but raisins. This was due to the fact that in Old English the word plum referred to prunes or raisins. The 'copper' used to boil the pudding was used the rest of the year for the Cratchit family laundry Hearn, 2004, p. 100, n. 45) thus the Cratchit children help Tiny Tim to the wash-house " that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper" Christmas Books-A Christmas Carol, p. 45).

1½ lb of raisins
½ lb of currants
½ lb of mixed peel
¾ lb of bread crumbs
¾ lb of suet
8 eggs
1 wineglassful of brandy

Stone and cut the raisins in halves, but do not chop them; wash, pick, and dry the currants, and mince the suet finely; cut the candied peel into thin slices, and grate down the bread into fine crumbs.

When all these dry ingredients are prepared, mix them well together; then moisten the mixture with the eggs, which should be well beaten, and the brandy; stir well, that everything may be very thoroughly blended, and press the pudding into a buttered mould; tie it down tightly with a floured cloth, and boil for 5 or 6 hours. It may be boiled in a cloth without a mould and will require the same time allowed for cooking. As Christmas puddings are usually made a few days before they are required for table, when the pudding is taken out of the pot, hang it up immediately, and put a plate or saucer underneath to catch the water that may drain from it.

The day it is to be eaten, plunge it into boiling water, and keep it boiling for at least 2 hours; then turn it out of the mould, and serve with brandy-sauce. On Christmas day a sprig of holly is usually placed in the middle of the pudding, and about a wineglassful of brandy poured round it, which, at the moment of serving, is lighted, and the pudding thus brought to table encircled in flame.

Time: 5 or 6 hours the first time of boiling; 2 hours the day it is to be served.

Sufficient for a quart mould for 7 or 8 persons.

Seasonable on the 25th of December, and on various festive occasions till March ( Beeton, 1861, p. 667).

Pip's Christmas Dinner

"( We were to have a superb dinner, consisting of a leg of pickled pork and greens, and a pair of roast stuffed fowls. A handsome mince-pie had been made yesterday morning and the pudding was already on the boil" Great Expectations, p. 19).

Dickens pared down A Christmas Carol for his public readings. Read an annotated version of Dickens' own reading text that can be read in a single sitting!

Learn how Charles Dickens influenced the celebration of Christmas

C hristmas was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.

Ok, borrowing Dickens' opening lines from ((A Christmas Carol may be a bit over-the-top, but there is some truth there. At the time Dickens wrote his time-honored little Christmas book, the celebration of Christmas was in decline. The medieval Christmas traditions, which were based on the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia (a pagan celebration for the Roman god of agriculture), and the Germanic winter festival of Yule Forbes, 2007, p. 10), had come under intense scrutiny by the Puritans under Oliver Cromwell who sought to purify the Church of England by stripping out pagan celebrations and superstitions Forbes, 2007, p. 56).

By Dickens' time the Industrial Revolution allowed workers little time for the celebration of Christmas. An undercurrent of the old Christmas traditions was being kept alive, mainly in rural areas and by authors such as Thomas Hervey ((The Book of Christmas-1836) and Washington Irving (The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon-1819), the latter being an influence, and later a friend of, Charles Dickens Hearn, 2004, p. xvi-xviii).

The revival of Christmas during the first one-half of the 19th century was further sparked by young Queen Victoria, whose husband, Albert, was from Germany where the Puritan influence had not eroded Christmas tradition. It was Albert who introduced the Christmas tree to Windsor Castle (( Forbes, 2007, p. 63-64). The first Christmas card appeared in the 1840s Forbes, 2007, p. 118).

It has been said that Charles Dickens invented Christmas. This, of course, is not true. It is more correct to say that with his 1843 masterpiece, A Christmas Carol, he reinvented Christmas. The miser Scrooge's descent into seeing Christmas as a humbug, and his subsequent transformation brought about by the spirits, can be seen as a microcosm of the decline and rebirth of the Christmas tradition.

Today (2022), after nearly two centuries, A Christmas Carol continues to be relevant, sending a message that cuts through the materialistic trappings of the season and gets to the heart and soul of Christmastime.

Dickens describes the holidays as "(( a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of other people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys" Christmas Books-A Christmas Carol, p. 10). This was what Dickens described for the rest of his life as the " Carol Philosophy" Letters, 1977, v. 4, p. 328).

One could say that Charles Dickens has probably had more influence on the way we celebrate Christmas today than any single individual in human history...except One.
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Tiny Tim's Ailment

In the December 1992 issue of the American Journal of Diseases of Children Dr. Donald Lewis, an assistant professor of pediatrics and neurology at the Medical College of Hampton Roads in Norfolk, Virginia, theorized that Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit's ailing son in Charles Dickens' classic A Christmas Carol, suffered from a kidney disease that made his blood too acidic.

Dr. Lewis studied the symptoms of Tim's disease in the original manuscript of the 1843 classic. The disease, distal renal tubular acidosis (type I), was not recognized until the early 20th century but therapies to treat its symptoms were available in Dickens' time.
Dr. Lewis explained that Tim's case, left untreated due to the poverty of the Cratchit household, would produce the symptoms alluded to in the novel.

According to the Ghost of Christmas Present, Tim would die within a year. The fact that he did not die, due to Scrooge's new-found generosity, means that the disease was treatable with proper medical care. Dr. Lewis consulted medical textbooks of the mid 1800's and found that Tim's symptoms would have been treated with alkaline solutions which would counteract the excess acid in his blood and recovery would be rapid.

While other possibilities exist, Dr. Lewis feels that the treatable kidney disorder best fits "the hopeful spirit of the story."

Source - AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter-1992

Wikipedia: Tiny Tim
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Ebenezer Scrooge

In the opening stave of A Christmas Carol Dickens describes Ebenezer Scrooge:
Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!

My personal favorite film version of
A Christmas Carol
is the 1984 adaptation starring George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge.

Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dogdays; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas. External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did. Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?" No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, "No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"
( But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he liked Christmas Books-A Christmas Carol, p. 8).
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The Many Faces of Ebenezer Scrooge

The Internet Movie Database lists more than 100 actors who have portrayed the famous Dickensian miser. Some of the best are pictured here.

A Good Humoured Christmas Chapter
We write these words now, many miles distant from the spot at which, year after year, we met on that day, a merry and joyous circle.

Pickwick Papers-Christmas at Dingley Dell
Many of the hearts that throbbed so gaily then, have ceased to beat; many of the looks that shone so brightly then, have ceased to glow; the hands we grasped, have grown cold; the eyes we sought, have hid their lustre in the grave; and yet the old house, the room, the merry voices and smiling faces, the jest, the laugh, the most minute and trivial circumstances connected with those happy meetings, crowd upon our mind at each recurrence of the season, as if the last assemblage had been but yesterday!
( Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fireside and his quiet home! The Pickwick Papers, p. 374-375)
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Charles Dickens' cherished little Christmas story, the best loved and most read of all of his books, began life as the result of the author's desperate need of ( money. In the fall of 1843 Dickens and his wife Catherine were expecting their fifth child. Requests for money from his family, and lagging sales from the monthly installments of Martin Chuzzlewit, had left Dickens seriously short of cash Slater, 2009, p. 215-220).

The seeds for the story that became (A Christmas Carol were planted in Dickens' mind during a trip to Manchester to deliver a speech in support the Athenaeum, which provided adult education for the manufacturing workers there. Thoughts of education as a remedy for crime and poverty, along with scenes he had recently witnessed at the Field Lane Ragged School, caused Dickens to resolve to " strike a sledge hammer blow" for the poor Ackroyd, 1990, p. 408-409).

As the idea for the story took shape and the writing began in earnest, Dickens became engrossed in the book. As the tale unfolded he "( wept over it, and laughed, and wept again" and that he " walked about the black streets of London fifteen or twenty miles many a night when all sober folks had gone to bed" Forster, 1899, v. 1, p. 326).

At odds with his publishers, Dickens paid for the production cost of the book himself and insisted on a lavish design that included a gold-stamped cover and four hand-colored etchings. He also set the price at 5 shillings so that the book would be affordable to nearly everyone ( Slater, 2009, p. 220).

The book was published during the week before Christmas 1843 and was an instant sensation but, due to the high production costs, Dickens' earning from the sales were lower than expected. In addition to the disappointing profit from the book Dickens was enraged that the work was instantly the victim of pirated editions. Copyright laws in England were often loosely enforced and a complete lack of international copyright law had been Dickens' theme during his ( trip to America the year before. He ended up spending more money fighting pirated editions of the book than he was making from the book itself Patten, 1978, p. 148-151).

Despite these early financial difficulties, Dickens' Christmas tale of human redemption has endured beyond even Dickens' own vivid imagination. It was a favorite during Dickens' public readings of his works late in his lifetime, and is known today primarily due to the dozens of film versions and dramatizations which continue to be produced every year.
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Preface to the Original Edition

I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.

Their faithful Friend and Servant,
C. D.
December, 1843.

A Darker Christmas

Christmas feasting, merrymaking, and good cheer in Dickens' earlier novels gives way to a darker, more reflective Christmas in the later novels. It is during the Christmas season that Pip encounters the escaped convict, Magwitch, on the marshes in the beginning of Great Expectations. In Dickens' last, and uncompleted, novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, his description of Christmas Eve in Cloisterham is both somber and reflective, and the trappings of the season seem a hollow and thin veneer:

Christmas Eve in Cloisterham
A few strange faces in the streets; a few other faces, half strange and half familiar, once the faces of Cloisterham children, now the faces of men and women who come back from the outer world at long intervals to find the city wonderfully shrunken in size, as if it had not washed by any means well in the meanwhile. To these, the striking of the Cathedral clock, and the cawing of the rooks from the Cathedral tower, are like voices of their nursery time. To such as these, it has happened in their dying hours afar off, that they have imagined their chamber-floor to be strewn with the autumnal leaves fallen from the elm-trees in the Close: so have the rustling sounds and fresh scents of their earliest impressions revived when the circle of their lives was very nearly traced, and the beginning and the end were drawing close together.
( Seasonable tokens are about. Red berries shine here and there in the lattices of Minor Canon Corner; Mr and Mrs Tope are daintily sticking sprigs of holly into the carvings and sconces of the Cathedral stalls, as if they were sticking them into the coat-button-holes of the Dean and Chapter. Lavish profusion is in the shops: particularly in the articles of currants, raisins, spices, candied peel, and moist sugar. An unusual air of gallantry and dissipation is abroad; evinced in an immense bunch of mistletoe hanging in the greengrocer's shop doorway, and a poor little Twelfth Cake, culminating in the figure of a Harlequin - such a very poor little Twelfth Cake, that one would rather called it a Twenty-fourth Cake or a Forty-eighth Cake - to be raffled for at the pastrycook's, terms one shilling per member. Public amusements are not wanting. The Wax-Work which made so deep an impression on the reflective mind of the Emperor of China is to be seen by particular desire during Christmas Week only, on the premises of the bankrupt livery-stable-keeper up the lane; and a new grand comic Christmas pantomime is to be produced at the Theatre: the latter heralded by the portrait of Signor Jacksonini the clown, saying 'How do you do to-morrow?' quite as large as life, and almost as miserably. In short, Cloisterham is up and doing... The Mystery of Edwin Drood, p. 154-155)

"It is good to be children sometimes,
and never better than at Christmas,
when its mighty founder
was a child himself"

A Christmas Carol
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Charles Dickens and the Celebration of Christmas

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Learn about Charles Dickens' influence on the celebration of Christmas.

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British Library: The Origins of A Christmas Carol

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British Library: The Origins of A Christmas Carol

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Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol In Context

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Ten-year-old Pip gets the fright of his life when he meets an escaped convict in a spooky graveyard. And that's just the beginning of an adventure that will lead him to a house full of secrets, a strange old lady and a journey to the big city to seek his fortune. But Pip is in for a BIG surprise . ..
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Dickens' natural inclinations toward drama and the macabre made him a brilliant teller of ghost tales, and in the twenty stories presented here, which include his celebrated "A Christmas Carol", the full range of his gothic talents can be seen.
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'The monstrous thought came into my mind as I perused the fixed eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man.'Three ghostly tales from a master of the form, 'The Signalman', 'The Trial for Murder' and the title story, 'To Be Read at Dusk'. One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946.

Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.
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Late in the eighteenth century authors began to write 'Gothic' stories as a way of putting literature back in touch with the irrational, the supernatural and the bizarre, which had been neglected in the 'Age of Reason'. This superb new collection brings together stories from the earliest decades of Gothic writing with later 19th and early 20th century tales from the period in which Gothic diversified into the familiar forms of the ghost- and-horror-story.

Work by writers such as Poe, Dickens, Hawthorne, Gaskell and M. R. James appears alongside that of anonymous writers from the start of the period and many lesser-known authors from Britain and America. Some of these stories, like the haunting 'The Lame Priest' are 'lost masterpieces' and several have never been anthologised before.

Together they cover the spectrum of Gothic story-telling - tales of madness and violence, of shape-shifters and spectres, that express some of the deepest fears of the human mind - insanity, sexuality, death and the often terrible power of the past to catch up with the present. In a lively, authoritative introduction David Blair provides fresh insights and a detailed commentary on the stories' place in the complex traditions of Gothic writing in British and American literature.
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A retelling of Charles Dickens' Christmas ghost story in a graphic novel format.

Ebenezer Scrooge has always hated Christmas, but this particular Eve, he's given another reason to be wary: the ghost of Jacob Marley comes to visit!

Clad in heavy chains and burdensome weights, Marley's ghost warns Scrooge that three spirits will visit him over the next three nights, each wit a ghastly story to share.

Will Scrooge's ghoulish experience teach him to embrace the spirit of Christmas, or will he say "bah humbug" for the last time?
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A Christmas Carol: Dyslexia-friendly edition

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A Christmas Carol: Dyslexia-friendly edition

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The classic Christmas story presented with dyslexia friendly font and paper.

Miserly Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his former business partner, and he learns he will be visited by three spirits - Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come - who reveal to him his miserable existence, the opportunities he squandered in his youth, the current cruelties he visits upon those around him, and the fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways.
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Usborne abridged edition
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Sherlock and Watson investigate the connection between a murder and the sighting of a large dog

The terrible spectacle of the beast, the fog of the moor, the discovery of a body, this classic horror story pits detective against dog. When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead on the wild Devon moorland with the footprints of a giant hound nearby, the blame is placed on a family curse. It is left to Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson to solve the mystery of the legend of the phantom hound before Sir Charles' heir comes to an equally gruesome end.

The Hound Of The Baskervilles gripped readers when it was first serialised and has continued to hold its place in the popular imagination.
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Wuthering Heights (abridged, dyslexia friendly)

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Wuthering Heights (abridged, dyslexia friendly)

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A retelling of Emily Bronte's classic gothic novel of doomed obsessive love, from Cathy's point of view.

The night that Heathcliff, an unkempt orphan, arrives at the Heights, Cathy's life will change for ever ... but theirs will not be a happy love story. From a harsh childhood to a foolish marriage, a troubled path of pain and punishment lies ahead. Yet no matter how they suffer, they cannot stay apart - for whatever souls are made of, Cathy's and Heathcliff's are the same. After all these years, will Cathy's ghost find the peace that life denied her?
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Explore the Victorians and discover facts about their houses, clothes, inventions and health. What were the major events of Queen Victoria's reign?

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The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

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The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

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The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a magical novel for adults and children alike'I've stolen a garden,' she said very fast. 'It isn't mine. It isn't anybody's. Nobody wants it, nobody cares for it, nobody ever goes into it.

Perhaps everything is dead in it already; I don't know.'After losing her parents, young Mary Lennox is sent from India to live in her uncle's gloomy mansion on the wild English moors.

She is lonely and has no one to play with, but one day she learns of a secret garden somewhere in the grounds that no one is allowed to enter.

Then Mary uncovers an old key in a flowerbed - and a gust of magic leads her to the hidden door.

Slowly she turns the key and enters a world she could never have imagined.

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All about A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens and life in the Victorian Age

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Welcome to Britannica School , a safe, up-to-date, and age-appropriate information resource for Primary, Middle and Secondary School.

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A brilliant cartoon intro to England's greatest novelist.

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Oliver Twist and other great Dickens stories

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Oliver Twist and other great Dickens stories

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A selection of the works of one of the world's greatest writers, retold in accessible comic-strip style. Charles Dickens is not only the author of some of the best-loved stories in the English language, but also the creator of some of its most memorable characters.

Meet them all between the pages of this splendid book, which retells, in lively comic-strip style, five of Dickens's most popular stories: Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield and A Christmas Carol.
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Oxford illustrated dictionary of 19th century language

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Oxford illustrated dictionary of 19th century language

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This unique dictionary provides clear definitions and example sentences for 3000 interesting, peculiar and difficult words found in the 19th century fiction and non-fiction texts studied at secondary school. As well as help with unfamiliar usage of modern words and dialect, the dictionaryincludes letter opener facts, panels on the context of the period, and an illustrated section on themes such as transport, crime, fashion and childhood. By demystifying the language of the time and putting its use in context, it will help students to access, understand, and enjoy the novels, poems, newspaper, and magazine articles of the 19th century.

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Twelve-year-old Zach is too old to play with toys. Or at least, that's what his father thinks. But even though he stops hanging out with Poppy and Alice, stops playing with his action figures, it's no good. There's one toy that still wants to play with him. A doll that's made from the bones of a dead girl. The only way to end the game is to lay the doll to rest for ever. It's time for a journey to Spring Grove cemetery. It's time to grow up.
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When Maya and her classmates are asked to write a creepy story with a winter theme, they come up with some brilliant ideas. Rising floodwaters uncover long-buried bodies and ghostly children take to the ice on a frozen canal. But as each of the stories is read out in class, Maya grows more and more uncomfortable. She features in each of her friends' creepy tales and they start to feel a little too real. Finally, when a mysterious new girl stands up to read the last story of the day, the light outside dims and it starts to snow. The classroom starts to freeze but everyone is trapped. Can Maya stop the story before the nightmare comes true?
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The Graveyard Book (graphic novel, two volumes)

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The Graveyard Book (graphic novel, two volumes)

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When a baby escapes a murderer intent on killing the entire family, he finds safety and security in the local graveyard. Brought up by the resident ghosts, ghouls and spectres, Bod has an eccentric childhood learning about life from the dead. But for Bod there is also the danger of the murderer still looking for him.
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Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds (graphic and verse)

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Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds (graphic and verse)

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Here are three rules in the neighborhood: Don't cry ; Don't snitch ; Get revenge. Will takes his dead brother Shawn's gun, and gets in the elevator on the 7th floor. As the elevator stops on each floor, someone connected to Shawn gets on. Someone already dead. Dead by teenage gun violence. And each has something to share with Will.
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The essential starting place for anyone who wants to learn about Black British History. David Olusoga’s thought provoking text charts the forgotten histories of Black people in Britain from Roman times right through to the present day. From Roman Africans guarding Hadrian’s Wall, to an African trumpeter in the court of Henry the Eighth, Black Georgians fighting for the abolition of slavery, Black soldiers fighting for Britain in the First World War, Windrush and right up today. These are the stories that brought us all together in this country.

When did Africans first come to Britain?

Who are the well-dressed black children in Georgian paintings?

Why did the American Civil War disrupt the Industrial Revolution?

These and many other questions are answered in this essential introduction to 1800 years of the Black British history.