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  Lifeguard - A Selection from the...

  John Updike

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  The extraordinarily evocative stories depict the generation born in a small-town America during the Depression and growing up in a world where the old sexual morality was turned around and material comforts were easily had. Yet, as these stories reflect so accurately, life was still unsettling, and Updike chronicles telling moments both joyful and painful. The texts are taken from his recent omnibus, The Early Stories, 1953-1975. 
  In describing how he wrote these stories in a small, rented, smoke-filled office in Ipswitch, Massachusetts, he says, ""I felt that I was packaging something as delicately pervasive as smoke, one box after another, in that room, where my only duty was to describe reality as it had come to me -- to give the mundane its beautiful due.""

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  Jorinda and Jorindel - Story...

  Brothers Grimm

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  Jorinda and Jorindel, two lovers engaged to be married, went for a walk in the forest. They came too near to the witch's lair. She turned Jorinda into a nightingale and petrified Jorindel to the ground. Once she had carried away the bird, she freed Jorindel, laughing that he would never see Jorinda again.

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  Pollyanna

  Eleanor H. Porter

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  In a small town far out West, 11-year-old Pollyanna loses her mother and then her dad to disease. This book describes how the orphan is sent to be raised by her aunt who lives far away in the East of the country. Unfortunately, her aunt does not want her but accepts her very reluctantly only out of 'duty' and sticks her into a tiny hot attic room so she will be "out of the way". What Aunt Polly does not know is that Pollyanna is bringing the game of being 'glad' that her father taught her and that her irrepressible happy attitude will transform not only that dull and miserable house but an entire village before she is through. 
   
  Eleanor H. Porter,  American novelist, and creator of the Pollyanna series of books generated a popular phenomenon. Hodgman studied singing at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. She gained a local reputation as a singer in concerts and church choirs and continued her singing career after her marriage. By 1901, however, she had abandoned music in favor of writing. Her stories began appearing in numerous popular magazines and newspapers, and in 1907 she published her first novel

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  Little Mother Up the Morderberg

  H. G. Wells

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  Herbert George Wells was perhaps best known as the author of such classic works of science fiction as The Time Machine and War of the Worlds. But it was in his short stories, written when he was a young man embarking on a literary career, that he first explored the enormous potential of the scientific discoveries of the day. He described his stories as "a miscellany of inventions," yet his enthusiasm for science was tempered by an awareness of its horrifying destructive powers and the threat it could pose to the human race. A consummate storyteller, he made fantastic creatures and machines entirely believable, and by placing ordinary men and women in extraordinary situations, he explored what it means to be alive in a century of rapid scientific progress. "Little Mother Up the Morderberg," is a humorous tale about a mother and son trekking to the top of a mountain.

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  Jane Eyre

  Charlotte Brontë

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  This classic story shows how a young woman can overcome adversity and find true happiness. It is a story of passionate love, travail, and final triumph.Orphaned at an early age, Jane Eyre leads a lonely life until she finds work as a governess at Thornfield Hall, where she meets the mysterious Mr. Rochester and sees a ghostly woman who roams the halls by night. The relationship between the heroine and Mr. Rochester is only one episode, albeit the most important, in a detailed fictional autobiography in which the author transmuted her own experience into high art. In this work, the plucky heroine is outwardly of plain appearance but possesses an indomitable spirit, a sharp wit, and great courage. She is forced to battle against the exigencies of a cruel guardian, a harsh employer, and the rigid social order that circumscribes her life and position.

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  The Devil's Pool

  George Sand

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  The Devil's Pool (1846) is a novel about the life of the French peasants by George Sand. Excerpt from the book: "I knew the young man and the beautiful child; I knew their history, for they had a history. Although but a peasant and a laborer, Germain had always been aware of his duties and affections. He had related them to me clearly and ingenuously, and I had listened with interest. After some time spent in watching him plow, it occurred to me that I might write his story, though that story were as simple, as straightforward, and unadorned as the furrow he was tracing. Next year that furrow will be filled and covered by a fresh one. Thus disappear most of the footprints made by man in the field of human life. A little earth obliterates them, and the furrows we have dug succeed one another like graves in a cemetery. I mean, if possible, to save from oblivion the furrow of Germain, the skilled husbandman. He will never know nor care, but I shall take pleasure in my talk."

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