A level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Written for Learners of English by Tim Vicary. All they could hear was the wind, and the waves crashing on to the rocks. All they could see was the night. They could not see the ship, broken in two. They could not see the people holding on to the dark wet rock, slowly dying of cold. And they could not hear the cries for help – only the wind. How could they save the people on the rock? Was their wooden boat stronger than the iron ship? Were a man and his daughter stronger than the great waves that broke the ship in two? The Forfarshire was wrecked off the north-east coast of England in 1838. This is the true story of Grace Darling – a girl who became a famous heroine on that stormy night.

Word count 6,685

A level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library graded readers. Written for Learners of English by Tim Vicary. Ellen Shore’s family is an ordinary American family, and Ellen is six years old when her brother Al is born. Her parents are very pleased to have a son, but Ellen is not pleased, because now baby Al comes first. And when they are adults, Al still comes first. He begins a rock band and makes records. Soon he is rich and famous – very rich, but he gives nothing to his sister Ellen. She has a difficult life, with three young kids and very little money. And she learns to hate her rich, famous, unkind brother . . .

A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Retold for Learners of English by Tim Vicary. On a September day in 1821, in the church of a Yorkshire village, a man and six children stood around a grave. They were burying a woman: the man’s wife, the children’s mother. The children were all very young, and within a few years the two oldest were dead, too. Close to the wild beauty of the Yorkshire moors, the father brought up his young family. Who had heard of the Brontës of Haworth then? Branwell died while he was still a young man, but the three sisters who were left had an extraordinary gift. They could write marvellous stories – Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall . . . But Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë did not live to grow old or to enjoy their fame. Only their father was left, alone with his memories.

The extraordinary story of how and why Grace Darling became a major celebrity and what has happened to her fame in the years since her tragic early death in 1842