Ghost by Jason Reynolds is a coming-of-age book that resonates with teenagers who have experienced childhood trauma. Explore the novel with an interactive resource that focuses on the author's use of symbolism, particularly with...

Scout Finch, the rough-and-tumble protagonist of Harper Lee's iconic To Kill a Mockingbird, learns quite a bit about how the world works as she observes her father's defense of Tom Robinson. Learn more about Scout and her distinctive...

What is Bloomsday? Why would thousands travel to Dublin on this day to visit sites depicted in a novel that is ridiculously hard to read? Why even bother with reading such a book? Find out by viewing a short video that suggests the...

Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore was selected as one of the 10 Best Books of 2005. A short video provides insight into the many threads that form the tapestry of the prize-winning novel.

The brain is an especially complex organ. A PD lesson from the Good Thinking series discusses the importance of not isolating processes to the right or left side of the brain. The instruction uses specific examples to illustrate how...

Jenna and Barbara Bush, daughters of former President George W. Bush, and author Armistead Maupin share with viewers their reasons for selecting John Knowles' A Separate Peace as one of their favorite books.

One Hundred Years of Solitude introduces readers to magic realism. Told in a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Nobel Prize-winning novel is a candidate for The Great American Read program and aficionados...

Adapting a much-beloved novel for the screen can be a tricky business. Each media has its own possibilities and limitations. The second PBS Jane Eyre resource in the Masterpiece series asks readers to evaluate how the filmmakers have...

As part of a study of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, class members compare the portion of Chapter IV, where Jane is criticized by Mrs. Reed and interrogated by Mr. Brocklehurst, with the film interpretation of the same scene.

A clip from the documentary Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth features Walker discussing her writing process and why she chose to write The Color Purple as an epistolary novel. The resource is part of PBS' American Masters...

Crash Course Literature 208: If One Finger Brought Oil: Things Fall Apart Part II by Chinua Achebe is the highlighted novel that the host summarizes. Characterization, plot and symbolism is discussed in detail to give the reader a better...

Crash Course Literature 208: If One Finger Brought Oil: Things Fall Apart I by Chinua Achebe is the highlighted novel that the host summarizes. Characterization, plot and symbolism is discussed in detail to give the reader a better...

Professor John Bowen discusses the enigmatic Heathcliff, from his early appearance as a rejected child, to his return as a powerful and violent antihero. [3:46]