Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is publishing a monthly series of e-only essays to correspond with Katherine Paterson's two-year term as the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. The subjects of the essays include: writing and literature for young people, the wonder and imagination found within great books, common questions novice writers ask, and Katherine's own personal experiences throughout her historic career.

The Financier (1912) is a novel by Theodore Dreiser. The first installment of Dreiser's Trilogy of Desire, The Financier has endured as a classic of naturalist fiction and remains a powerful example of social critique over a century after its publication. Followed by The Titan (1914) and The Stoic (1947), The Financier captures the greed at the heart of the Gilded Age, a time when tycoons rose with total impunity to take over swaths of American industry....

Holmes is visited by a perturbed proper English gentleman, John Scott Eccles, who wishes to discuss something "grotesque". No sooner has he arrived at 221B Baker Street than Inspector Gregson also shows up, along with Inspector Baynes of the Surrey Constabulary. They wish a statement from Eccles about the murder near Esher last night. A note in the dead man's pocket indicates that Eccles said that he would be at the victim's house that night. Eccles...

Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies of contemporary...

First published in English by Edward Fitzgerald in 1859 from its original Farsi, "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" is a collection of quatrains attributed to Omar Khayyam, a Persian astronomer and mathematician born in the later part of the 11th century. Omar Khayyam's poetry, which received very little international notoriety in its own day, achieved classic status when it was discovered and rendered into English verse by Edward Fitzgerald over seven...

"Babies and toddlers will learn to say "Mama!" with this adorable and fun-to-read board book written by an early speech expert! Each page features: Simple words and "Mama" phrases that are easy for little ones to imitate, and can be used and practiced throughout daily routines. Rhythm and rhyme to encourage repetition and help keep babies engaged, even before they can understand the text. Real photographs that model correct mouth positions and support...

In her book In the company of children, Joanne Hindley invites you inside her third-grade New York City classroom to "have a look" as she describes her reading and writing workshops. Joanne extends the invitation once again through a series of four video programs that give you a close-up look at mini-lessons and conferences during those workshops. In the two programs on reading mini-lessons and writing mini-lessons, she explores and rethinks the resources,...

First published in 1899, this graphic depiction of urban American life centers around its title character, McTeague, a dentist practicing in San Francisco at the turn of the century. While at first content with his life and friendship with an ambitious man named Marcus, McTeague eventually courts and marries Trina, a frugal young woman who wins a large sum of money in a lottery. The greed of the majority of the characters in the novel creates a chain...

"Middle school students can use the lessons in this eBook to help improve their spelling skills for class, homework, and important essays--in just 15 minutes a day!" --

Discusses how students can design and create portfolios for different school subjects.