Planning a school or amateur Shakespeare production? The best way to experience the plays is to perform them, but getting started can be a challenge: The complete plays are too long and complex, while scene selections or simplified language are too limited. "The 30-Minute Shakespeare" is a new series of abridgements that tell the "story" of each play from start to finish while keeping the beauty of Shakespeare's language intact. Specific stage directions...

Ira becomes upset when Malcolm refuses to play hide-and-seek with him.

Open Your Heart recounts the story of a difficult friendship between two girls brought together by illness at a young age. One girl suffered from severe strabismus, while the other was born blue. The first, defiant, feels that something is wrong with her, while the second is an angelic child loved by all. One becomes a writer, and the other dies at eighteen, during an operation that should have saved her life.

Illustrations and simple text portray a small pod of seals telling others there is no room for them on their rock but, read backwards, reveals their willingness to accept others that have nowhere else to go.

Wuthering Heights is a tale of passion, revenge, and the destructive power of love. The novel is narrated by Mr. Lockwood, a gentleman from London who rents a house called Thrushcross Grange in the Yorkshire moors. He becomes intrigued by the mysterious goings-on at Wuthering Heights, the nearby estate owned by the reserved and surly Heathcliff. The main narrative unfolds through the eyes of Nelly Dean, a servant who has witnessed the events at Wuthering...

Persuasion narrates the emotional journey of its protagonist, Anne Elliot, who chances upon Captain Wentworth, a suitor she was persuaded to reject seven years earlier, and whose reappearance causes her to reflect on her past decisions and contemplate her marital future. Vividly depicting the society holiday towns of Lyme Regis and Bath, and infused with its author's trademark wit, Austen's last completed novel, set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic...

"Rejected by his superstitious herd, a half-striped zebra embarks on a daring quest to earn his stripes but finds the courage and self-acceptance to save all the animals of the Great Karoo"--from www.imdb.com.