You may shudder at the thought of picking up an English novel to read: in the little spared time struggling through those tiny crawly words printed on two hundred or more pages, trying to get their meaning but inevitably often stumbling over words you don’t know, let alone immerging yourself in the world of the novel. If that is the case, why not give yourself a try at graded readers? First, graded readers are thin and light, so it’s hardly a burden at all.

Second, they are edited into several levels of difficulty for you to choose from, whatever level that matches your ability, and the grammar simpler, no slang used. If you’re just beginning to read English stories, graded readers are a good start. We have many series of graded readers; most famous ones are Heinemann, Penguin, and Oxford, in which are included adaptations of literature classics, popular modern novels, and book-based films, and some other original stories too. You won’t fail to find something that will arouse your interest.

Made out of authentic materials, graded readers are reduced, condensed, and rewritten, so there must be many things missing. Therefore, if you resent the idea of reading an adaptation instead of an original, you still have many other choices: children’s books and fictions. Children’s books are like graded readers in that they are easy to read, and they are all light. In addition, children’s books are written for children so they are more interesting and funnier, and some of them have lots of pictures too.

Children’s books are not for children only, though some of them seem to be. If you have watched the movie, Charlie and Chocolate Factory, surely you won’t want to miss its sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, and it’s nothing like the movie’s happy ending. We have many other books also by the same author Roald Dahl. His stories are always full the strangest events that are beyond your imagination, and The Witches, The BFG, and Matilda are among the readers’ favorites. The Newberry Medal winner Holes, written by Louis Sachar, is also much enjoyed by many readers. Stanley was accused of a crime he didn’t commit, and was sentenced to digging holes at Green Lake Camp. As it turned out, the digging had something to do with his family curse and his great, great, great…great grandfather. We also have Sachar’s The Wayside School. In this series, there are all sorts of weird students with their own eccentric habits that are sure to bring you much laughter. Want some more funny stories? Then Captain Underpants is it. George and Harold “were usually responsible kids. Whenever anything bad happened, they were usually responsible.” They hypnotized their school principal into Captain Underpants, who is the hero in their own comic books. In the story, the writer often jumps in and talks directly to the reader. It’s a highly interactive book which contains story, funny comics, and activities. Vampires are always a fascinating theme for horror stories. Darren Shan’s Cirque de Freak is a vampire-hunting story, a great mixer of adventure and thrill that appeals to boys as well as girls; even Harry Potter’s creator J.K. Rowling could not put this book down. "Fast-paced and compelling, full of satisfying macabre touches" she writes. For more horror stories, explore the Goosebumps series. We also have Interview with the Vampire, and The Lost Boys at the fiction section. There are many ways to take a journey to other worlds, for example, by going through the magic wardrobe in Narnia, sucked into books in The Magic Tree House, or descending the hidden stairs in the basement in The Secrets of Droon. If you are tired of the hustle and bustle of daily life in this world, just pick up one of these books and have an exciting adventure in other worlds. Perhaps you think that adventure stories are for boys, and you prefer some thing more warming and heart lightening. Sweet Valley series is written for you. The series starts from Sweet Valley junior high, senior high, and goes all the way to university. The books revolve around the lives of teenagers Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, beautiful blonde twins who live in Sweet Valley, California. There seems to be no end to this series, and the books we have amount to almost forty. They are like soap operas and they never bore you. If you enjoy this series, you can also read Baby-Sitters Club and Junie B. Jones series. In addition to those series books, we have over fifty Newbery Medal and Honor books, many of which now have Chinese translation as well, like Bud, Not Buddy and The Hatchet. You can read one of those if you don’t care for long series stories.

Among over 150 novels, we have a little bit of everything for everyone, ranging from literature to general fiction, from science fiction to love stories. We have works by Hemingway, John Updike, Toni Morrison, and so on. We also have some famous general fictions like The Kite Runner, Da Vinci Code, and The Joy Luck Club. Or if you’re in for movies, we have some of their original novels like About a Boy, The Silence of the Lambs, and Jurassic Park. If you like mystery and thriller, we have Stephen King and John Grisham. For science fiction, you can find Michael Crichton. It’s impossible to include everything in this short introduction. It’s better you come here and take your time browsing. If you are ready for reading an authentic novel, certainly you’ll have no problem choosing a good read by the introduction at its back cover, so just drop in.