Newest Study Guides
Each study guide includes essays, an in-depth chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quiz. Study guides are available in PDF format.
Each study guide includes essays, an in-depth chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quiz. Study guides are available in PDF format.
Goodnight Moon was written by Margaret Wise Brown with illustrations by Clement Hurd and published in 1947. Although today considered a classic of children’s literature that is more likely than not to be found in a home with a pre-school child as...
The City of Embers, written by Jeanne DuPrau, is the first in the eponymous series, and was published in 2003 under the genre of children's science-fiction. The book was followed by three sequels and a comic book to follow in 2012, illustrated by...
Moon Over Manifest is children’s novel based on real historical events that happened in The United States. It is the first book written by Clare Vanderpool and was published on May 2, 1995. The story centers around a young girl named Abilene, and...
Ramona Quimby has a vivid imagination and alot of spunk, which sometimes earns her the rather unfair reputation of being a bit of a pest. Of course, she doesn't mean to be a pest. Circumstances conspire with each other to make her seem that way....
In 1964 Shel Silverstein was a uniquely prolific and productive writer of children’s books. On the heels of his first such book published a year earlier, 1964 saw the publication of four books for his juvenile audience including perennial...
James Moloney is an Australian-born writer, whose work is largely aimed at children and young readers, although he has written novels for adults. Since his first book was published in 1992, Moloney has been nominated for a large number of literary...
Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman” was originally published in 1978 in her third volume of poetry, And Still I Rise. The poem was also featured that same year in Cosmopolitan magazine. At the time of its publication, Angelou was already well known...
First published in The Liberator in 1921, "America" is Jamaican-born poet Claude McKay's powerful reflection on both the attraction and the antagonism he felt toward the nation in which he spent much of his adult life. Written while McKay was...
In Time is a 2011 sci-fi action thriller written and directed by Andrew Niccol. The film was produced by Marc Abraham, Eric Newman along with Niccol and was made for an estimated $40,000,000 budget and returned $173,930,596 in gross sales...
Graham Greene published Brighton Rock as one of his "entertainments," geared towards a popular audience, in 1938. He is reported to have started writing the novel as a simple detective story, but the depth and complexity of spiritual torment felt...
Written and directed by Federico Fellini, 8 1/2 is an Italian avant-garde film released in 1963. Its title derives from its position as the eighth and a half film that Fellini directed (if one considers his two short films and a collaboration each...
Even if you have never heard of Rashomon, you are still likely familiar with the plot of this 1950 Japanese film directed by the master filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. Television shows as diverse as All in the Family, The X-Files and King of the Hill...
Author and cancer doctor Rachel Naomi Remen's 2001 novel My Grandfather's Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging tells readers stories of kindness and joy. She tells a story about her Rabbi grandpa, a man that saw life in a very...
For many relatively young readers, Stephen Chbosky's novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower is one of the most important books of their lives. Naturally, when a film version of the 1999 novel was first announced - originally with the legendary John...
Our Mutual Friend is the last novel Charles Dickens completed during his lifetime; The Mystery of Edwin Drood was left incomplete when the author died in 1870. The novel was published in 20 parts spread over 19 months (the final installment was a...
First published in 1920, Claude McKay's "The Lynching" stands as a powerful condemnation of one of the most horrific chapters of American history. A form of unlawful killing carried out by mobs, lynchings increased in the years after...
"If We Must Die" is writer Claude McKay's most famous poem, showing his deft use of the form most associated with his work, the sonnet. McKay composed the poem in response to the outburst of racial violence in the summer of 1919, dubbed "The Red...
Her is a 2013 American romantic science-fiction film directed, produced, and written by Spike Jonze. The film follows Theodore, a lonely man in the final stages of a divorce. His career is writing "beautiful handwritten letters" on behalf of other...
Perhaps O'Hara's most celebrated poem, "Having A Coke With You" describes an afternoon spent in the park with a lover.
After returning from a trip to Spain in 1960, O'Hara wrote "Having A Coke With You" following an afternoon he spent with dancer...
The Martian, a science fiction survival film directed by Ridley Scott, is the big screen adaptation of the 2011 novel of the same name, written by Andy Weir. It tells the story of Mark Watney, a botanist turned astronaut, played by Matt Damon, who...
Released in 2016, J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy was a near-instant success, receiving widespread acclaim for its sobering depiction of white, working-class Americans experiencing a collective identity crisis. It remains a controversial book, with...
After the explosive release of Awakenings in 1973, Oliver Sacks waited over a decade to publish a second book. His next two books were released within a year of one another: A Leg to Stand On in 1984, and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat in...
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing is a children's book published in 1972, and is to date one of author Judy Blume's most famous works. It is the first book in the Fudge Series, which follows the experiences of a 9-year-old fourth grader named Peter...
Although “In an Artist’s Studio” was published posthumously in 1896, the poem’s composition occurred on December 24, 1856, a date which has proved useful for scholarly interpretation. Since its publication, scholars have assumed that Rossetti’s...