Newest Study Guides
Each study guide includes essays, an in-depth chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quiz. Study guides are available in PDF format.
Each study guide includes essays, an in-depth chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quiz. Study guides are available in PDF format.
A Single Shard was published in 2001 and was written by Linda Sue Park. It is a novel that is set in ancient Korea, and that tells the story of a young boy named Tree-ear, who is an orphan. He sees a potter and wants to learn how to make pottery,...
Rules, written by Cynthia Lord, was published in 2006.
This book is about Catherine, a 12-year-old girl, who has a little brother named David. She tries to pretend that she is a normal girl with a normal life, but her life is not normal because...
Robert Leslie Conley was enjoying a career as a senior editor in the employ of National Geographic Magazine. And this was back when that magazine held a reputation beyond repute; back before it was in the hands of anti-science magnate, Rupert...
Bridge to Terabithia, written by Katherine Paterson, was published in 1977. The narrative focuses on Jesse Aarons, a boy who lives on a farm and who dreams of being the fastest runner in sixth grade. When he gets back to school, Leslie Burke, who...
The Invention of Hugo Cabret is a well-known published text written by American author Brian Selznick, published in 2007. As this book has 284 pictures between its 533 pictures, it can be assumed that the pictures are of the same importance as the...
At around 60 pages in most editions, Sarah, Plain and Tall is a fairly short novel, but it would be an even thinner volume if published in the form originally conceived. Author Patrician MacLachlan had planned for her deceptively simple story to...
Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy has a title true to its promise. In a manner not dissimilar to John Dos Passos’ monument trilogy U.S.A, Auster’s definitive work is actually composed of three separate and distinct novel: City of Glass, Ghosts...
Chanda's Secrets is a book written by Allan Stratton which was published in 2004. The book revolves around the character of Chanda, who is a 16 year old girl. Chanda's younger sister, Sarah dies and this brings immense grief to her family....
The Book of Negroes, also known as Someone Knows My Name, is a novel written by author Lawrence Hill, which was originally published during 2007. It was later published during 2015 by W. W. Norton Company. This novel tells the story of protagonist...
A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder is a novel written by James De Mille. It is his most famous and most well read book. After De Mille passed away, Harper’s Weekly published the work in a series and then in 1888, it was published in...
Published in 2008, Unaccustomed Earth is Jhumpa Lahiri’s second collection of short stories. Characteristic of Lahiri’s work, Unaccustomed Earth explores the Indian American characters’ lives and culturally mixed society. It won the 2008 Frank...
Betty Smith’s novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was first published in 1943. By 1945 it had already been adapted into a very successful movie. Then, by 1952, the story was transformed into a hit musical on Broadway. What was the reason for such...
Shadows was John Cassavetes' directorial debut. The idea for the film grew out of an improvisation from a class he was teaching at his drama school, "The Cassavetes-Lane Drama Workshop." It involved a young African-American woman who was very...
Characterized by Joyce Carol Oates as the most unpretentious masterpiece of the American literary tradition, The Dollmaker is a novel by Harriete Arnow that was published in 1954 and proved to be a pathbreaking novel. This novel was nominated for...
Fly Away Peter is a book written by David Malouf in 1982. The book mainly revolves around the story of Jim Saddler who has an advanced understanding of the bird life of an estuary near his home. A man called Ashley Crowther inherits the farm which...
Angela Carter is an English novelist born on May 7, 1940 in Eastbourne, England. As a child, she was raised in a family that valued art and literature. Her father was a journalist, and she followed in his footsteps by writing for the Croydon...
Initially transcribed sometime around 1164, Erec and Enide is not just the first of the great Chivalric Romances by Chretien de Troyes, it is one of the earliest poems about King Arthur and is usually regarded as the first Arthurian work to...
Lone Star is a richly layered ensemble piece featuring a complex plot and complicated characters written and directed by John Sayles. The convoluted plot is a murder mystery in which much darker elements of political corruption are slowly revealed...
The Unredeemed Captive is a novel written by John Putnam Demos that was published in 2011. It was nominated for the National Book Award and won the Francis Parkman Prize. Demos is also a historian in addition to being an author, and he has won the...
Jennifer Finney Boylan is an American novelist and activist born on June 22, 1958 in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Although Boylan was born a biological male, she felt as though her natural body did not fit her true personality. It was a gnawing...
Dalton Conley was born in 1969 to income-poor parents (from middle class backgrounds) who had moved to New York's Lower East Side before the spike in drugs and crime during the following decade. The neighbourhood was poverty striken, and, with the...
An Ornithologist's Guide to Life: Stories was written by award-winning author Ann Hood. Hood is the bestselling author of The Book That Matters Most, The Knitting Circle, An Italian Wife, Comfort, and several other works. In this extraordinary...
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is a Swedish novel that was translated from its original language into English. It is at one level a gripping, chilling suspense novel about a crime that occurred decades before, and the naive young journalist who...