Fact Files with historical and cultural background information. THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE Arthur Conan Doyle Adapted by Maria Cleary Recording in British English When legendary detective Sherlock Holmes and his trusted friend, Dr Watson, are asked to investigate a mysterious organisation, the Red-headed League, they find that there is more to the organisation than meets the eye. THE SECRET GARDEN Frances Hodgson Burnett Adapted by Geraldine Sweeney Recording in British English When Mary Lennox’s parents die in India, she moves to England to live in her uncle’s enormous manor. Mary is sad and lonely but one day she finds an old key to a secret garden that no one goes into and a whole new world of magic and enchantment opens up to her. Before long Mary learns to make friends for the first time. Can the garden bring back the love that is missing from her life? A CHRISTMAS CAROL Charles Dickens Adapted by Elspeth Rawstron Recording in British English Ebenezer Scrooge is a mean and miserable man with no friends. One cold Christmas Eve three ghosts visit him and take him on a frightening journey to show him what is wrong with his life. Can Scrooge change and learn to become a better person? ANIMAL FARM George Orwell Adapted by Noel Ensoll Recording in British English The animals on Manor Farm live a terrible life, the work is hard and there is not enough food. One day, they decide to rebel against Farmer Jones and run the farm themselves without any humans. Soon the pigs decide to take control and little by little life on the farm becomes the same as before. Level 2 · A1/A2 Friendship · Human interest 80 pages ISBN 978-3-71140-163-2 Level 3 · A2 Human interest · Mystery 92 pages ISBN 978-3-7114-0108-3 Level 3 · A2 Fable · Human interest 84 pages ISBN 978-3-7114-0237-0 Level 2 · A1/A2 Detective · Mystery 76 pages ISBN 978-3-99089-145-2 AUDIO ON APP ONLINE ACTIVITIES ON ANIMAL FARM GEORGE ORWELL CEFR A2 HELBLING READERS MARCH 2024 GLOSSARY • awareness: knowledge • complain: say what made them unhappy • concern: worry • crawl: move on their hands and knees • fate: (here) future (usually intended as negative) • fragment: small piece (here, of writing) • hardship: difficult situations • mankind: human race • neglected: not given enough care or attention • seemingly: that seems • shoe polish: cream for cleaning shoes Children in factories Factory owners employed children because they were cheap, had lots of energy and they did not complain•. Because they were small they could do very detailed work and they could also crawl• under machines to fix broken parts. In 1874, a law called The Factory Act said that children under 10 could not work in factories. Dickens and factories Dickens’ idea of children reflected his own terrible experiences as a child: his father was arrested for bankruptcy when he was twelve and Dickens had to leave school and work at a factory making shoe polish•. These experiences returned again and again in his fiction. Dickens himself writes in an autobiographical fragment•, “all these things have worked together to make me what I am." Did you know? Dickens was a very affectionate parent when his ten children were very little, but then he gradually became harder and more distant when they grew up. The young Dickens in the shoe polish factory by Fred Barnard. 9 9783711401083_A Christmas Carol_book_new reprint 2022.indd 9 20/06/22 16:32 In A Christmas Carol we meet Tiny Tim, one of Dickens’ best-loved characters. Tiny Tim is a suffering child and he represents all the innocent, abused, abandoned, or simply neglected• children that populate Dickens’ novels. Many of them are orphans in a seemingly• indifferent society. The creation of characters such as Tiny Tim, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and Pip (in Great Expectations), shows Dickens’ concern• with children and their fate• in Victorian England. He clearly wanted to encourage deeper social awareness• about children’s problems. He thought that they deserved special care to protect them from hardship•, hunger and separation from their families. His concern reflected the growing attention given to children in the nineteenth century, especially in Britain. This century was characterized, among other things, by the development of a new idea of the child. Before this, society considered children to be uninteresting, or incomplete adults. By Dickens’ time, however, this idea was changing, and children were seen more objectively, and even as being closer to mankind’s• original, natural state. Child workers in Dickens’ time. 8 9783711401083_A Christmas Carol_book_new reprint 2022.indd 8 20/06/22 16:32 29 CLASSICS HELBLING READERS CATALOGUE 2024
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