Earth Day

“The Painted Door” is a short story by Sinclair Ross. It was first published in 1938 and later reprinted in The Lamp at Noon and Other Stories by Sinclair Ross in 1988. Ross is known for his fiction (both short stories and novels) depicting life on the Canadian prairies, particularly during the Great Depression. The author was born in 1908 on a homestead near Shellbrook, Saskatchewan, Canada, and lived in various locations across the Canadian... Read The Painted Door Summary

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The Peripheral is a 2014 science-fiction novel by William Gibson. Gibson has been writing science fiction works since the 1970s and is considered one of the founding fathers of the cyberpunk genre. His debut novel, Neuromancer, is one of the genre’s foundational texts and is the only novel to win the Nebula, Hugo, and Philip K. Dick awards. Since then, Gibson has written several bestselling science-fiction trilogies. The Peripheral is the first novel of The... Read The Peripheral Summary

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The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, & Power is an influential work by Daniel Yergin that was originally published in 1991. Yergin, a highly regarded American historian and economic researcher, examines the history and influence of the global oil industry. With a background in energy economics and policy, Yergin brings a wealth of expertise to this comprehensive examination, providing a detailed narrative of the oil industry’s evolution and its substantial impact on global... Read The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power Summary

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The Recruit by British author Robert Muchamore (Hodder Children’s Books, 2004) is the first book in the middle-grade spy adventure CHERUB series and follows a 12-year-old boy who is plucked from a difficult life to become a spy. The book offers a look at the opportunities presented by change while exploring themes of overcoming fear, seeing issues from both sides, and making difficult choices. The Recruit was nominated for eight awards and won seven of... Read The Recruit Summary

The Red Pony by John Steinbeck was published in installments from 1933 to 1936, as a novella in 1937, and in a short story collection, The Long Valley, in 1945. Steinbeck drew upon his experience living in the Salinas Valley. The four stories that make up The Red Pony are considered works of classic literature and bildungsroman, or coming-of-age stories. Steinbeck also wrote the screenplay for the 1949 film adaptation of The Red Pony, and... Read The Red Pony Summary

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The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey (2005) is a work of nonfiction by Candice Millard, a former writer and editor for National Geographic. The book describes Roosevelt’s 1914 expedition down an unexplored river in the Amazon rainforest, which nearly cost him his life. Despite poor preparation for the trip, Roosevelt and the group managed to overcome the Amazon’s physical and psychological challenges and placed a 1,000-mile river on the map in a historic... Read The River of Doubt Summary

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First published in The Atlantic in 1960, James Hurst’s “The Scarlet Ibis” won the magazine’s “Atlantic First” award. Frequently included in literature anthologies, Hurst’s tragic short story explores themes of pride, shame, and death within the context of coming of age.This guide refers to the 1960 version that appeared in The Atlantic as well as the brief biographical information included in that original publication.Content Warning: The source text uses outdated, offensive terms to describe people... Read The Scarlet Ibis Summary

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The Secret Garden is a middle-grade novel written by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was first published as a serialized novel in The American Magazine between November 1910 and August 1911, and in 1911, it was republished in book form. Burnett had already written two extremely successful novels: Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886) and A Little Princess (1905). Over her lifetime, she wrote 36 books and plays and numerous short stories and was one of the most... Read The Secret Garden Summary

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“The Shell Collector” (2002), a short story by American author Anthony Doerr, tells the story of an unnamed, blind shell expert living alone with his dog, Tumaini, on an isolated Kenyan island. He receives unwanted international attention after curing a local girl of malaria by exposing her to the bite of a deadly, venomous cone shell.This guide refers to the edition in the short story collection of the same name, published by Simon & Schuster... Read The Shell Collector Summary

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