What does it mean when a fictional hero takes a journey?. Shares a meal? Gets drenched in a sudden rain shower? Often, there is much more going on in a novel or poem than is readily visible on the surface -- a symbol, maybe, that remains elusive, or an unexpected twist on a character - and there's that sneaking suspicion that the deeper meaning of a literary text keeps escaping you. In this practical and amusing guide to literature, Thomas C. Foster...

Originally published in 1907, 'Through the magic door' is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's heartfelt and instructive tour of his personal library.

"Through a story from his own childhood, Hudson Talbott shares the challenges--and ultimately the rewards--of being a non-mainstream kind of learner"-- Provided by publisher.

"Meet Henley, an all-around good kid, who hates to read. When he's supposed to be reading, he would rather do anything else. But one day, he gets the scariest homework assignment in the world: find your favorite book to share with the class tomorrow. What's a kid to do? How can Henley find a story that speaks to everything inside of him?"--Amazon.com.

"When Kyle learns that the world's most famous game maker, Luigi Lemoncello, has designed the town's new library and is having an invitation-only lock-in on opening night, he's determined to be there! But the tricky part isn't getting into the librar--it's getting out. Because when morning comes, the doors stay locked. Kyle and the other kids must solve every clue and figure out every secret puzzle to find the hidden escape route!"-- Publisher.

In an age defined by hyper-connectivity and constant stimulation, Francine Prose makes a compelling case for the solitary act of reading and the great enjoyment it brings. Inspiring and illuminating, What to Read and Why includes selections culled from Prose's previous essays, reviews, and introductions, combined with new, never-before-published pieces that focus on her favorite works of fiction and nonfiction, on works by masters of the short story,...

Poppleton the pig moves from the city to a small town, where he makes new friends and spends Mondays reading adventure books in the library.

What happens to books as they live in our long-term memory? Why do we find some books entertaining and others not? And how does literary influence work on writers in different ways? Grounded in the findings of empirical psychology, this book amends classic reader-response theory and attends to neglected aspects of reading that cannot be explained by traditional literary criticism. Reading arises from a combination of two kinds of mental work: automatic...

Working at the local library, Aleisha reads every book on a secret list she found, which transports her from the painful realities she's facing at home, and decides to pass the list on to a lonely widower desperate to connect with his bookworm granddaughter.

In An Experiment in Criticism, C. S. Lewis offers a thought-provoking and unconventional approach to literary criticism. Instead of evaluating literature by traditional standards of quality, Lewis suggests that the true value of a book lies in how readers engage with it. He proposes that literature should be judged not by its inherent qualities but by the kind of reading experience it provides. Lewis distinguishes between two types of readers: those...