France, 1815. Jean Valjean leaves prison after nineteen years. These are dangerous and troubled times, and life is hard. Valjean must begin a new life, but how can he escape his past, and his enemy, Inspector Javert? This story for Bookworms is loosely based on the famous novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, one of France's greatest writers. The novel was written in 1862, and the story has been retold many times - in a musical, in plays for radio and theatre, and in more than fifty films for television and cinema.
The novel centres around the protagonist, Iris Chase, and her sister Laura, who committed suicide immediately after the Second World War. Iris, now an old woman, recalls the events and relationships of her childhood, youth and middle age, as well as her unhappy marriage to Richard Griffen, a rival of her industrialist father. Interwoven into the novel is a story within a story, a roman а clef attributed to Laura and published by Iris about Alex Thomas, a politically radical author of pulp science fiction who has an ambiguous relationship with the sisters.
Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls is a children's book packed with 100 bedtime stories about the life of 100 extraordinary women from the past and the present, illustrated by 60 female artists from all over the world. Each woman's story is written in the style of a fairy tale. Each story has a full-page, full-color portrait that captures the spirit of the portrayed hero.
A person can tell about something that happened in the past with the Past Tense, the Present Tense, and even with a mixture of the two tenses. There is nothing wrong with telling a story with one or more tenses. However, for those rare important occasions when the speaker needs to use the past tense only, he or she should know how to do it. This story deals with the latter issue.
