Stories to read together.

The quietest room in town, and Milo has the hiccups.

Everybody thought Jane was lost. She was not lost. She was keeping very, very still.

Lily's tooth has wobbled for six days. Everyone wants to help.

It is the biggest puddle Pip has ever seen. The trouble is his new shoes.

For almost all of human history, night meant total darkness. No lamps, no candles, no light of any kind once the sun went down. The world simply stopped belonging to us.

Ada promised her brother the Bear. But no stars came.

A true story about a woman who changed the world by counting.

Ask anyone to name the greatest invention and most people say the wheel. It feels like the beginning of everything.

Almost every version of this story says the same thing. Somebody dropped a green rock into a campfire, and in the morning found metal.

In 1846 one hospital division in Vienna had two clinics. Women admitted to one of them died at several times the rate of the other. Nobody could explain it, and the women themselves knew which door they dreaded.

Picture the very first time humans used money. Most people picture a trade, a fish for an axe, an axe for a basket.

Imagine the very first thing anyone ever wrote down. Most people picture a poem, a prayer, or the name of a king.