“How should a seven year old child react when forced to be separated from a mother who meant everything to her? How should she react when she learns that the aunt with whom she was sent to live doesn’t really care about her? Will she be able to make real friendships with people outside her family? Would she be able to take her belief in God as a comfort? If you want to find answers to all these questions, read the enjoyable novel “The Wide, Wide World”. There, you will see how the amazing Ellen Montgomery reacts to all those things, and many, many more”.

There are many romantic tales about a handsome and rich man falling in love with a beautiful lower class woman over the objections of his family. Remember Elizabeth Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy? however, it takes more than a good woman to secure a man's happiness. He has to have mental strength. It is not certain that our hero, Tom, has that. Lois is a great woman. However, according to his sister, she is a "nobody." Does money and position control everything? Certainly not. Good people deserve to be happy...

Written in the 14th century by the Gawain poet, 'Pearl' is an elegiac poem reflecting on the death of a young daughter, pictured as a pearl lost in a garden. It is considered a masterpiece of Middle English verse, incorporating both the older tradition of alliterative poetry as well as rhyme, centered around the development of an intricately structured image. Sophie Jewett's translation from the Northern dialect of the original renders much of the poem's liveliness and beauty accessible to modern readers, whilst encouraging them to pursue their reading further, to read the original itself.This recording is dedicated to the memory of Pearl Jean Shearman, 1914-2012.