On the equinox both day and night are 12 hours long. The following 10 gems from our catalog are concerned with differences – and equality.

Photogen is a boy who never saw the moon. Nycteris is a girl who never saw the sun. Find out what happens when The Day Boy and the Night Girl overstep their boundaries set by the witch Watho and meet – in the lovely novel by George MacDonald.

Also like day and night, or rather like Tempest and Sunshine are the two sisters Fanny and Julia. Mary Jane Holmes weaves her story of the life of the different siblings in the pre-civil war South of the US.

The South of England is the home of Margaret, but circumstances force her family to move to an industry town in the North. Elizabeth Gaskell’s second social novel North and South focuses on the views of the employers.

All of Charles Dickens‘ novels can be considered as social critiques. So is The Old Curiosity Shop, where young Nell lives with her old grandfather until they lose all their money and are foced to live as beggars. We also have a Dutch version of this book.

Had Robin Hood been around, he would certainly have provided for them – with money stolen from the rich. Read J. Walker McSpadden’s book about the hero from Sherwood and decide for yourself whether he was a real person.

But money is not everything, as Gwendolyn already knows in the novel by Eleanor Gates. Left by her rich parents in the care of negligent servants, The Poor Little Rich Girl takes the wrong medicine – and promptly finds herself in a strange world…

From rags to riches only works if the outside appearance is matched by the speech of the person. At least that’s what Prof. Higgins believes in George Bernard Shaw’s famous play Pygmalion, as he tries to have poor Eliza pass as lady of society.

Mark Twain, with his sharp wits had a great time commenting – in disguised literary form – on current events. Sketches new and Old is a collection of his shorter writings.

Always old and always new – every religion is reinterpreted by every generation. In Henry Scougal’s letter The Life of God in the Soul of Man he dwells on his definition of true religion.

The English poet William Blake had his own view on religion. In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell he describes a visit to hell, which he sees as source of energy, as opposed to a more regulated vision of heaven.

Enjoy the attraction of the opposites!

It’s that time of the year again: the holidays are coming up! To ease your kid’s anxiety (and your own), try the following 10 gems from our catalog.

There is nothing worse than having to stay at school during the holidays! The boring time expected by Gerald, James and Kathleen turns into a series of adventures in The Enchanted Castle, when they find a magical ring… Read the novel by Edith Nesbit to find out more.

Heidi also has lots of places to explore when her aunt brings her to the Swiss mountain hut where she will stay with her grandfather. The story is about how the lives of both Heidi and the Alm-Öhi change with her arrival – and is beautifully told by Johanna Spyri. This book is also available in French.

While Heidi soon settles in, Dorothy will try everything to return to Kansas. To do this, she must see The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and so she starts out on the yellow brick road… Read all about Dorothy and her new found friends in our dramatic reading of L. Frank Baum’s classic for children.

How life was on a station more than 100 years ago is told by Mary Grant Bruce in A Little Bush Maid, which is set in Australia. The daily life and small adventures of Norah are interrupted by an extra enjoyable trip to see the circus…

Many people would certainly pay a lot of money to see My Father’s Dragon. The book by Ruth Stiles Gannett starts when Elmer runs away to rescue a baby dragon from Wild Island. Will he succeed? And what will they be up to next?

Were the people who invented dragons aware of dinosaurs? While they could not breathe fire, those Mighty Animals would rule the Earth for millions of years before the mammals came, an impressive feat detailed in lovely small book by Jennie Irene Mix.

Before the discovery of America, numerous Indian Tribes inhabited the lands. Alexander Charles Eastman tells about their day to day lives of boys and girls in his childhood reminiscences Indian Child Life, when he was called Ohiyesa.

Not only his, but the whole Story of Mankind is highly interesting. Hendrik van Loon explains it all: from prehistoric man to the invention of Hieroglyphs, from the great nation of the Greeks to the crusades, from the reformation to the age of Science.

Jennie Hall picks a small part of that story. Her Viking Tales from Iceland focuses on the great sagas of King Halfdan and his son Harald, and who knows where the grain of truth is hidden there…

Telling the truth is generally a good idea, but somehow, being naughty seems to be more fun. What happens to naughty children is the topic of Heinrich Hoffman’s famous Struwwelpeter: Merry Stories and Funny Pictures. We also have a recording in the original German.

Enjoy – and Happy Holidays!

Welcome to the sixth and last leg of our World Tour, where we return to the cradle of mankind and make a roundtour with 10 gems from our catalog.

Let’s start our journey in Algeria, where we meet Tartarin of Tarascon who is in search of nothing less than lions. Read the funny novel by Alphonse Daudet about the French show-off – also available in French.

Travelling further along the coast and back in time, we make a brief stop in Egypt at the reign of one of its most famous queens. William Shakespeare gives his view on the well known story of Antony and Cleopatra.

Moving upstream on the Nile into the Sudan, we have a look at the Mahdist War of the late 19th century. We see it through the eyes of Winston Churchill who took part in the battle for Khartoum and wrote The River War.

A river in Uganda is the scene for a war of a different kind: In The Man Eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures. John Henry Patterson details the long hunt for two lions that killed more than 108 men who were building a railway bridge across the Tsavo.

Lions and other animals feature prominently in Zanzibar Tales. The ancient tales of animals, some with a feel of 1001 Nights, were told to George W. Bateman by the natives of Tanzania.

Zanzibar is only the starting point in the book by R. M. Ballantyne. His novel Black Ivory tells about the slave trade in East Africa, which was well alive at a time when it was long forbidden on the West coast.

Moving further south, we get to the Zulu Kingdom. H. Rider Haggard tells Black Heart and White Heart, a story of love and betrayal during the time of Cetawayo, the last King of the independent Zulu nation.

These days, Zululand is a part of South Africa, just as the Karoo region, where Olive Schreiner spent part of her life. Her life and ideas form the basis of her best known novel The Story of an African Farm, which expresses some interestingly modern ideas.

Not quite so modern ideas, although they are by now means extinct, are expressed in the short poem The Congo. Although decidedly racist in its contents, it is interesting to note that its author Vachel Lindsay viewed himself as a supporter of African-American culture.

Finally, we get to travel from Sierra Leone to the peak of Cameroon with Mary H. Kingsley. Her book Travels in West Africa is an account of the adventures she had and insights she gained on her voyage of 1893.

Enjoy – and send a postcard!