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Hidden Stories Behind the Classics
Because the classics should be a lifelong joy. Five minutes a day with the authors, times and hidden lessons of the classics, growing your humanities strength day by day — each one a step closer to the books.
- EraThe Real Denmark Hiding Inside Andersen's Fairy TalesAndersen grew up poor in nineteenth-century Denmark, and the cold streets, rigid classes and working children of his time quietly fill his fairy tales.Andersen's Fairy Tales
- LessonWhat Old Fairy Tales Still Teach Us About Courage and KindnessTwo centuries ago, the Brothers Grimm wrote down tales of clever children and kind strangers, and their lessons still offer families plenty to talk about.Grimms' Fairy Tales
- StoryA Toy Rabbit Who Wanted to Know What It Means to Be RealA velveteen rabbit given as a Christmas present learns from a wise old toy what it means to become Real, in a gentle story first published in 1922.The Velveteen Rabbit
- LessonWhat the Elephant's Child Teaches About Asking QuestionsKipling's tale of a curious young elephant invites families to talk about why questions matter and how we answer them.Just So Stories
- StoryWhy We Still Root for a Rabbit Who Breaks the RulesA small rabbit slips into the one garden he was told to avoid, and readers have been holding their breath with him for more than a century.The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Other Tales
- StoryTreasure Island Began With a Map on a Rainy DayHow a map drawn alongside a stepson became a pirate adventure, first printed in a children's magazine under a pen name.Treasure Island
- StoryA Cyclone, a Yellow Brick Road and Three Unlikely FriendsDorothy's journey toward the Emerald City, the friends she meets on the way, and the world that shaped L. Frank Baum's story.The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
- AuthorKenneth Grahame, the Banker Who Wrote About a RiverDenied a place at Oxford, Kenneth Grahame worked at the Bank of England and wrote river stories for his son.The Wind in the Willows
- EraThe Time Machine and the Victorian Dream of ProgressHow late nineteenth-century science, Darwin's ideas and London's class divide shaped H. G. Wells's vision of the far future.The Time Machine
- EraMary Lennox, a Child of the EmpireHow British rule in India, a cholera outbreak and the Yorkshire moors frame The Secret Garden.The Secret Garden
- SocietyWhy Odysseus Was Fed Before Anyone Asked His NameHospitality, gods who take sides and poetry sung from memory: a look at the ancient Greek world behind the Odyssey.The Odyssey
- StoryMowgli at the Council RockWritten in snowy Vermont, The Jungle Book begins with a baby, a wolf family and a pack that must decide.The Jungle Book
- EraGold, Snow and Sled Dogs in the World of The Call of the WildThe Klondike Gold Rush of the 1890s, the hard trail north, and Jack London's own winter in the Yukon shaped Buck's story.The Call of the Wild
- AuthorThe Doctor Who Invented Sherlock HolmesHow Arthur Conan Doyle's medical training shaped Sherlock Holmes, and how the author once played detective in real life.The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
- EraRobinson Crusoe and the Age of Ships and LedgersHow early eighteenth-century trade, the slave trade and the habit of keeping a diary shaped Defoe's castaway.Robinson Crusoe
- SocietyWhy the Bennet Sisters Had to Think About MarriageInheritance rules, a world with few jobs for women, and the etiquette of the ballroom explain the pressure behind Pride and Prejudice.Pride and Prejudice
- AuthorJ. M. Barrie and the Boy Who Would Not Grow UpA brother lost in childhood, boys met in Kensington Gardens and a gift to a children's hospital lie behind Peter Pan.Peter Pan (Peter and Wendy)
- SocietyThe Workhouse World That Made Oliver TwistEngland's New Poor Law, the workhouse and London's street children, and what Dickens wanted his readers to see.Oliver Twist
- SocietyThe Real Family Behind Little WomenLife on the Civil War home front and the Alcott household in Concord, Massachusetts, that inspired the March sisters.Little Women
- LessonJane Eyre and the Courage to Speak UpWhat young Jane learns about self-respect and forgiveness at Gateshead and Lowood, and how Charlotte Brontë's own schooldays shaped the story.Jane Eyre
- SocietyHeidi and the Homesickness of the MountainsMountain poverty, growing cities and adults deciding for children form the social world of Heidi.Heidi
- StoryHamlet, a Ghost, and the Most Famous Question on StageWhat Hamlet is about, why "To be, or not to be" still echoes, and what it was like to watch a play at the Globe.Hamlet
- AuthorHow a Rainy Summer Contest Gave Us FrankensteinAt eighteen, Mary Shelley joined a ghost-story contest by Lake Geneva and came away with one of the most famous monsters in fiction.Frankenstein
- AuthorCervantes Was a Soldier and a Captive Before He Wrote Don QuixoteBefore Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes fought at Lepanto, spent five years as a captive in Algiers, and struggled to make a living.Don Quixote
- AuthorThe Factory Boy Who Grew Up to Write A Christmas CarolHow a childhood job in a blacking warehouse shaped Charles Dickens and the Christmas story he wrote in 1843.A Christmas Carol
- LessonWhat Black Beauty Teaches About KindnessTold by a horse, Black Beauty asks readers to see cruelty and kindness from the animal's side.Black Beauty
- LessonWhat Anne of Green Gables Teaches About Getting Things WrongImagination, mistakes, and friendship on Prince Edward Island: why a talkative, imperfect orphan still wins readers over.Anne of Green Gables
- EraAlice Was Born in a World Full of RulesA boat trip in 1862, an Oxford mathematician and the strict Victorian world behind Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
- LessonWho Added the Moral to Aesop's Fables?The neat one-line lessons at the end of Aesop's fables were often added later, which leaves room for readers to find their own.Aesop's Fables