The Anglo-Saxon race was in its boyhood in the days when the Vikings lived. For every heroic vice, the Vikings laid upon the opposite scale an heroic virtue. They plundered and robbed, as most men did in the times when Might made Right. Yet the heaven-sent instinct of hospitality was in the marrow of their bones. No beggar went from their doors without alms; no traveller asked in vain for shelter. As cunningly false as they were to their foes, just so superbly true were they to their friends. Above all, they were a race of conquerors, whose knee bent only to its proved superior.
In Serkland, there was a king named Hjarandi, who had a son named Hedinn. This son was a great sea-king and he pillaged all over the Mediterranean until twenty kings paid tribute to him. One day he met a beautiful woman sitting on a chair who called herself Göndul. She told him of Högni, and agitated him to test his strength against the northerner. Hedinn took three hundred men, and sailed both a summer and a winter until he arrived in Denmark in spring.
David Copperfield - Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 5
Third Edition Charles Dickens Retold by Clare West
'Please, Mr Murdstone! Don't beat me! I've tried to learn my lessons, really I have, sir!' sobs David.
Although he is only eight years old, Mr Murdstone does beat him, and David is so frightened that he bites his cruel stepfather's hand. For that, he is kept locked in his room for five days and nights, and nobody is allowed to speak to him.
As David grows up, he learns that life is full of trouble and misery and cruelty. But he also finds laughter and kindness, trust and friendship . . . and love.
Keeping You A Secret Julie Anne PetersJulie Anne Peters
Holland Jaeger's mother's version of Holland's future: Girl goes to school, girl gets good grades, girl goes to Harvard or Stanford or Antioch College, girl meets boy, girl gets married, gets great job, has children and lives happily ever after.
Holland's version of Holland's future: Girl goes to school, girl gets good grades, girl gets rejected from Harvard, girl meets girl? Girl wants to be an artist, or maybe work with kids?
Owen, Frank, Audrey, and Jin-Ae have one thing in common: they all want to die. When they meet online after each attempts suicide and fails, the four teens make a deadly pact: they will escape together on a summer road trip to visit the sites of celebrity suicides...and at their final destination, they will all end their lives. As they drive cross-country, bonding over their dark impulses, sharing their deepest secrets and desires, living it up, hooking up, and becoming true friends, each must decide whether life is worth living--or if there's no turning back.
