Eighth Reader by James Baldwin

Reading with Expression is an eighth-grade anthology designed to train students to read aloud with understanding, variety, and feeling while also deepening their taste for literary quality. Its teacher's guidance stresses careful interpretation, daily discussion of style, tone, and vocabulary, and the anthology itself spans poems, speeches, stories, patriotic pieces, and classic excerpts from major English and American writers, including Dickens, Shakespeare, Lincoln, Whitman, Burns, Emerson, Shelley, Bryant, Poe, and Kipling. The selections move from home, nature, birds, revolution, and memorization pieces to vivid narrative and dramatic scenes. Among its most memorable passages is George Eliot's Brother and Sister, a tender study of Tom and Maggie Tulliver's volatile affection, where adoration, jealousy, and forgiveness reveal the pain and sweetness of sibling love. Dickens contributes a devastating moment from David Copperfield, in which the young narrator learns of his mother's death at school, and a joyous Christmas scene from A Christmas Carol, where Fezziwig's generosity fills the warehouse with music and warmth. Thackeray's wit appears in Miss Pinkerton's Academy, while Ivanhoe offers Locksley's proud display of skill. The anthology also includes reflective and comic pieces such as a Christmas poem, Lamb's New Year's dinner for the Days of the Year, and the satirical Town Pump, celebrating public service and simple virtue. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.