Great novels are often connected-to (or based-on) real-life events. It's fun to search-for (and uncover) those connections. This Collection features fictional stories with real-life tie-ins.
British orphans - real Oliver Twists - were as young as seven or eight when they were transported hundreds of miles away to work at various jobs.
C.S. Lewis, an unmarried professor whom his friends called Jack, was a highly successful writer when he met an American woman named Joy Davidman Gresh...
During the summer of 1864, Union engineers from Pennsylvania (with mining experience in their own state) dug a tunnel under Confederate lines at Peter...
Slumdog Millionaire - a story about believing in oneself and in our own destiny - takes place in India.
On the night before Halloween, 1938, Orson Welles and his colleagues at Mercury Theatre on the Air played a prank on the American people.
While Theseus was sailing to Crete, as a Tribute for King Minos and the Minotaur, the monster had a dream.
As his own father had abandoned his mother and her baby, Theseus abandoned his new wife, Ariadne.
Theseus and The Minotaur is a Greek myth about the son of an Athenian king - Theseus - and a horrifying monster - "The Minotaur.
Theseus learned that his father was Aegeus, King of Athens, after he was able to move a heavy rock and discover what was beneath it.
Shakespeare wrote immortal lines for this play, including the now-famous phrase: "This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle..."
J.M. Barrie - whose family called him "Jamie" when he was young - wrote one of the most-beloved of all children's stories.
John Boyne's novel - "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" - is now a major motion picture. This clip presents one of its trailer.
Story
Chapter
Story Brief
Learning Task
Image
Audio
Questions to Ponder
Audio Narration
Document