The curious crew from the Netflix series Ask the StoryBots star in an all-new Step into Reading leveled reader! Get ready to meet the rapping velociraptors. They've got pointy teeth, sharp claws, and mad rhymes. Based on a favorite StoryBots adventures, this Step 1 Science Reader will entertain boys and girls ages 4 to 6 while imparting a few fun facts about these popular carnivorous creatures. Step 1 Readers feature big type and easy words for children who know the alphabet and are eager to begin reading. Rhyme and rhythmic text is paired with picture clues to help children decode the story.

Germinal by Emile Zola - Translated and Introduced by Havelock Ellis 'GERMINAL' was published in 1885, after occupying Zola during the previous year. In accordance with his usual custom--but to a greater extent than with any other of his books except La Debacle--he accumulated material beforehand. For six months he travelled about the coal-mining district in northern France and Belgium, especially the Borinage around Mons, note-book in hand. 'He was inquisitive, was that gentleman', miner told Sherard who visited the neighbourhood at a later period and found that the miners in every village knew Germinal. That was a tribute of admiration the book deserved, but it was never one of Zola's most popular novels; it was neither amusing enough nor outrageous enough to attract the multitude. Yet Germinal occupies a place among Zola's works which is constantly becoming more assured, so that to some critics it even begins to seem the only book of his that in the end may survive. In his own time, as we know, the accredited critics of the day could find no condemnation severe enough for Zola. Brunetiere attacked him perpetually with a fury that seemed inexhaustible; Scherer could not even bear to hear his name mentioned; Anatole France, though he lived to relent, thought it would have been better if he had never been born. Even at that time, however, there were critics who inclined to view Germinal more favourably. Thus Faguet, who was the recognized academic critic of the end of the last century, while he held that posterity would be unable to understand how Zola could ever have been popular, yet recognized him as in Germinal the heroic representative of democracy, incomparable in his power of describing crowds, and he realized how marvellous is the conclusion of this book. To-day, when critics view Zola In the main with indifference rather than with horror, although he still retains his popular favour, the distinction of Germinal is yet more clearly recognized. Seilliere, while regarding the capitalistic conditions presented as now of an ancient and almost extinct type, yet sees Germinal standing out as 'the poem of social mysticism', while Andre Gide, a completely modern critic who has left a deep mark on the present generation, observes somewhere that it may nowadays cause surprise that he should refer with admiraton to Germinal, but it is a masterly book that fills him with astonishment; he can hardly believe that it was written in French and still less that it should have been written in any other language; it seems that it should have been created in some international tongue. The high place thus claimed for Germinal will hardly seem exaggerated. The book was produced when Zola had at length achieved the full mastery of his art and before his hand had, as in his latest novels, begun to lose its firm grasp. The subject lent itself, moreover, to his special aptitude for presenting in vivid outline great human groups, and to his special sympathy with the collective emotions and social aspirations of such groups. We do not, as so often in Zola's work, become painfully conscious that he is seeking to reproduce aspects of life with which he is imperfectly acquainted, or fitting them into scientific formulas which he has imperfectly understood. He shows a masterly grip of each separate group, and each represents some essential element of the whole; they are harmoniously balanced, and their mutual action and reaction leads on inevitably to the splendid tragic dose, with yet its great promise for the future. I will not here discuss Zola's literary art (I have done so in my book of Affirmations); it is enough to say that, though he was not a great master of style, Zola never again wrote so finely as here. The title refers to the name of a month of the French Republican Calendar, a spring month. Germen is a Latin word which means "seed"; the novel describes the hope for a better future that seeds amongst th"

Most Chinese-language textbooks today cater to beginners and intermediate-level students, but virtually none address the unique needs of advanced students seeking to expand or reinforce their language skills in one semester. "Readings in Contemporary Chinese Cinema" fills this gap through the use of critically acclaimed Chinese films to teach students Chinese while also broadening their knowledge about China.

The authors have carefully chosen ten movies produced in recent decades by filmmakers from mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Set broadly within the twentieth century, these classic films are representative of both urban and rural life, and vividly depict the diversity of perspectives that comprise contemporary Chinese society. The authors provide an informative synopsis and critique of each movie, and include selections of movie dialogue that allow students to practice and build proficiency. The comprehensive lessons are supplemented with exercises, sentence-pattern examples, English-language glossaries, and extensive vocabulary lists. There are also discussion questions that can be used in conjunction with screenings of the films.

"Readings in Contemporary Chinese Cinema" is designed for students with three or more years of college-level instruction in modern Chinese, and can be used alone or as a sequel to "Anything Goes: An Advanced Reader of Modern Chinese." It has been proven effective at Princeton University and in the Princeton in Beijing program, and is ideal for those returning from study abroad in China.