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.
Written by MacArthur grant winning economist and leading feminist Nancy Folbre, The Invisible Heart (2002) is presented as a new take on the connection between family values and economics. In the book, Folbre explores a central question: how does...
Eye in the Sky is a war drama film directed by South African filmmaker Gavin Hood. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 11 September 2015 with a wide release the following year. Though parts of the film are set in Nairobi,...
Set in the eponymous Wayside School, which was accidentally built sideways, Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom is a short story cycle novel (a collection of short stories which are designed to be read together) that is the fourth novel in...
Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger is a short story cycle novel (a novel comprised of thirty separate stories which are designed to be read together rather than apart) which is the third book in the eponymous Wayside School series. It tells the...
Written by esteemed children's author Louis Sachar, Wayside School is Falling Down is the second book in the critically acclaimed, bestselling series Wayside School series. Like its predecessor, Wayside School is Falling Down is a short story...
After college, author Louis Sachar said that he was only interested in ever writing one book for children. That book became Sideways Stories from Wayside School. After the tremendous critical, popular, and financial success of Sideways Stories...
Set in the 1850s and first published in 1899, Charles W. Chesnutt’s "The Passing of Grandison" is a short story about a Southern slave owner's son's attempt to free a slave whose stubborn loyalty foils his plans.
In an era when it is a federal...
“I Think of Thee” is an Italian sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, which first appeared in her 1850 collection Sonnets from the Portuguese. In the work, a speaker describes her desire to imagine and fantasize about a lover, who is addressed in...
Walter Benjamin’s essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" has become one of the landmark texts in the field of cultural theory. Benjamin was a fringe member of a highly influential group of German intellectuals in the 1930s...
"Danse Russe" is an early poem by William Carlos Williams, published in 1916, about a young father dancing alone in front of a mirror. Williams was a major figure in the Imagism and Modernism literary movements. In his poetry, he focused on paring...
"Mrs Midas" is a poem written by Carol Ann Duffy, a Scottish poet and former British Poet Laureate. As its name implies, “Mrs Midas” is a creative, subtle retelling of the Greek myth of Midas’s touch. In the myth, King Midas is granted a wish by...
"Between Walls" is a poem by American writer William Carlos Williams about shards of a glass bottle hidden in the back area of a hospital. First published in 1938, the work, like much of Williams's poetry, focuses on the depiction of scene and the...
“First Kill” is a short story by Victoria “V.E.” Schwab which initially appeared in the vampire anthology titled Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with a Fresh Bite, edited by Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker. Schwab’s story brings the collection...
Written by Cuban-American author Maria Irene Fornes, Mud was first produced on the stage in 1983. Described by its author as "a play in 17 scenes," Mud tells the story of a girl named Mae who lives in a house with a man named Lloyd. Mae is in her...
Darling: New and Selected Poems is a collection of poems written by esteemed author Jackie Kay. There are a mix of brand-new poems (like "The Adoption Papers") and old poems that were never collected which are brought together in Darling. Each of...
“If Thou Must Love Me, Let It Be For Nought” is an 1850 sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in which a speaker begs her beloved to orient their feelings of love around permanent rather than fleeting features. Dismissing a series of attributes,...
This One Summer, the graphic novel written by Canadian author Mariko Tamaki, tells the story of the summer that two friends called Rose and Windy spent together in a small beach town called Awago. Rose, who is the narrator of the story, is dealing...
“Killing Mr. Griffin” is a novel written by Lois Duncan, and it falls into the genre of thriller mystery. The author, Lois Duncan, is recognized in the literary world as the leading author of the young adult fiction.
This particular novel follows...
Cat's Cradle, like many of Vonnegut's other novels, gets considerable mileage from irony and humor as it makes serious points about the state of the world and humanity. His tone is often light, but his words have a considerable bite. The novel is...
Set in an unnamed developing country, Andy Mulligan's Trash (2010) is a young-adult thriller novel about three boys whose lives change when they find in the garbage a bag linked to a murder and millions of stolen dollars. With corrupt police and...
"Education for Leisure" is a poem by the British writer Carol Ann Duffy, in which a delusional and violent speaker describes his plans to commit a murder. The work was originally published in Duffy's 1985 collection Standing Female Nude. Over the...
“War Photographer” initially appeared in Carol Ann Duffy’s first published collection of poetry, Standing Female Nude (1985). The poem depicts a photographer developing pictures he has taken in different war zones and reflecting on the pain and...
Beowulf is the first surviving epic written in the English language. The single existing copy of the manuscript dates from the late tenth century, although some scholars believe it dates from the first part of the eleventh century. It is found in...
Langston Hughes was an American poet and social activist, born and raised in Joplin, Mississippi. Langston Hughes was a prominent leader in the Harlem Renaissance, an artistic movement in the 1920s that consisted of new African-American cultural...