The Black Death

Grade 10 Up - An excellent, inclusive volume for reports. The two major sections, "The Black Death Ravages Europe" and "The Economic and Cultural Impact of the Black Death," illustrate the focus of the text. Students are given a clear explanation of the disease and how it may have spread and some coverage of its social, economic, and cultural repercussions.

Abelard and Heloise - The Letters and Other Writings

The most comprehensive compilation of the works of Abelard and Heloise ever presented in a single volume in English, The Letters and Other Writings features an accurate and stylistically faithful new translation of both The Calamities of Peter Abelard and the remarkable letters it sparked between the ill-fated twelfth-century philosopher and his brilliant former student and lover -- an exchange whose intellectual passion, formal virtuosity, and psychological drama distinguish it as one of the most extraordinary correspondences in European history.

Pigeon Post

Pigeon Post is the sixth book in Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of children's books, published in 1936. It won the first Carnegie Medal awarded for children's literature.
This book is one of the few Swallows and Amazons books that does not feature sailing. All the action takes place on and under the fells surrounding the Lake. Ransome made use of the mining and prospecting knowledge and experience of his friend, Oscar Gnosspelius, who features in the book as a character known as Squashy Hat.

We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea

We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea is the seventh book in Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of children's books. It was published in 1937. In this book, the Swallows (Walker family) are the only recurring characters. They are staying in a new location, Pin Mill on the River Orwell upstream from the ports of Felixstowe and Harwich.

The book features a small sailing cutter, the Goblin, which is almost identical to Ransome's own boat Nancy Blackett. This book also features accurate geography unlike the Lakes books. Ransome sailed Nancy Blackett across to Flushing by the same route as part of his research for the book.

Secret Water

John, Susan, Titty and Roger, the crew of the Swallow, take on the job of mapping the mass of small islands round Pin Mill while living on the biggest one. But who are the mysterious savages who lurk in the islands - and is the tribal totem they find in their campsite a threat of attack.