Shigazu’s Dance
When curious May drifts beyond the forbidden mountains in a runaway balloon, she discovers that the feared Shigazu may be the friend her thirsty homeland needs most.
Books and illustrated stories
Find your next read in Zapappy Story. Browse book summaries, authors, genres, and reading ages before opening the reader.
Hermit the Frog
A small frog moves through one quiet day by the pond, finding warmth in simple rooms, slow walks, soft meals, and the gentle rhythm of coming home.
Hermit and the Rainy Day
When a rain-soaked little bird knocks at his door, Hermit discovers that a quiet home can have room for a friend—and for one tiny seed.
Hermit and the Little Seed
Hermit plants a tiny seed and gives it water, sunshine, and time until a soft blue flower opens beside the pond.
Hermit and the Windy Day
When a lively wind scatters the flower's seeds and Hermit's notebook pages, Hermit learns that some small things are ready to find their own way.
Hermit's Moonlight Walk
When newly blooming flowers keep his nose—and Hermit—awake, a moonlight walk reveals a quiet nighttime world just outside his window.
Better Bets
A lucky robotics victory makes Maya look like a genius. An unlucky defeat forces her to decide whether good choices can still matter when nobody controls the ending.
Stone by Stone
When the wall protecting his family’s sheep collapses before the spring thaw, fourteen-year-old Thomas must face failed work, his father’s impossible reputation, and the harder task of learning how to begin again.
How Much Land Does a Man Need?
A peasant believes that enough land will make him fearless. Each new boundary leaves him wanting another, until one final bargain lets him claim all he can walk around in a day.
The Lion's Three Questions
During a terrible drought, a young lion prince searches for three answers that will make him a perfect ruler. He finds an old gardener, a wounded enemy, and a water dispute with no painless solution.
The City That Had Everything
Veloria is the most admired capital in the kingdom, built from flawless avenues, golden halls, and carefully hidden costs. When its lamps fail and its streets begin to sink, an ambitious young lamplighter must choose between the official story and what he hears beneath the stones.
The Little Flame and the White Valley
A confident young fire-spirit crosses a dazzling frozen valley with an old snow hare. A hidden spring, a snow-loaded spruce, and a failing flame turn the easy journey into a race against the cold.
The Moonstone Brooch
A country mouse borrows a beautiful brooch for the grandest winter ball in the city. When it disappears, she and her husband choose debt over admitting the truth—and spend ten years paying for an appearance.
Beauty and the Beast
After her father plucks a rose from an enchanted garden, Beauty willingly enters the castle of a fearsome Beast—and discovers that appearances conceal more than one imprisoned heart.
Cinderella
A disregarded young woman receives one impossible evening at court—but must decide what remains when the borrowed splendor disappears.
Hansel and Gretel
Two hungry children are abandoned in a forest whose sweetest refuge conceals its greatest danger.
The Snow Queen
When a splinter of a wicked mirror freezes Kay’s heart, Gerda crosses gardens, palaces, forests, and the far north to bring him home.
The Little Mermaid
A young mermaid gives up her voice for a human life, then discovers that love, pain, and a soul cannot be won as simply as a bargain promises.
East of the Sun and West of the Moon
After one forbidden glimpse breaks an enchantment, a determined young woman travels beyond every known direction to recover the white bear prince.
The Ugly Duckling
A gray young bird endures ridicule, exile, and winter before discovering what he has been growing into all along.
Rumpelstiltskin
A miller’s boast traps his daughter in an impossible bargain whose final price can be escaped only by discovering a name.
The Emperor's New Clothes
A vain emperor and an anxious court agree to see magnificent cloth that does not exist—until one honest child names what everyone can plainly see.
The Frog King
A princess makes a promise beside a deep well, then learns that help received cannot be discarded when repayment becomes inconvenient.
Little Red Riding-Hood
A trusting country girl meets a courteous wolf on the road to her grandmother’s house and learns too late that pleasant manners do not guarantee kind intentions.
Snow-White
Driven from home by a jealous queen, a young princess finds refuge with seven miners but must survive three disguises and one beautiful poisoned gift.
Rapunzel
A girl raised alone in a doorless tower discovers friendship and a path outward, but freedom requires a long separation before it can be won.
The Selfish Giant
A giant walls children out of his garden and discovers that spring has gone with them—until one small child teaches him how to welcome it back.
The Happy Prince
A gilded statue and a migrating swallow give away everything beautiful they possess to help the people suffering below them.
The Steadfast Tin Soldier
A one-legged toy soldier is swept from a nursery through gutter, drain, and fish, yet holds fast to courage and to the paper dancer he admires.
The Fisherman and His Wife
A fisherman frees an enchanted flounder, but each wish granted to his restless wife makes their home grander and the sea more dangerous.
The Bremen Town Musicians
Four aging animals, discarded when their working days are over, set out to become musicians and discover a better home together.
The Elves and the Shoemaker
A poor shoemaker discovers perfect shoes appearing overnight, then finds a way to thank the two tiny helpers whose skill restored his livelihood.
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
A wounded soldier follows twelve princesses through a hidden passage into a glittering underground kingdom where their shoes—and their secret—are worn away each night.
The Wellspring of the Mind
A ruler, a merchant, and a scholar find an ancient well that offers no answers—yet rises with every question asked beside it.
A Journey into the Interior of the Earth
Professor Liedenbrock, his cautious nephew Axel, and their unshakable Icelandic guide Hans descend through an extinct volcano into a vast subterranean world of storms, seas, fossils, and living prehistoric monsters.
Moby Dick
Ishmael joins the whaling ship Pequod under Captain Ahab, whose consuming pursuit of the great white whale draws the crew across the world’s oceans toward catastrophe.
Pride and Prejudice
Elizabeth Bennet meets the proud Mr. Darcy amid balls, proposals, family embarrassments, mistaken judgments, and the changing affections of two sharply intelligent people.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Dr. Watson chronicles twelve ingenious cases in which Sherlock Holmes confronts hidden identities, baffling clues, dangerous conspiracies, and crimes stretching from Baker Street across Victorian Britain.
The Blue Castle
After a devastating diagnosis, twenty-nine-year-old Valancy Stirling escapes her suffocating family, chooses an unconventional life in Ontario’s northern woods, and discovers courage, companionship, and love at Lake Mistawis.
The Constitution of the United States
The charter that transformed “We the People” into a revolutionary promise of government by the people—shaping the course of representative democracy and, through generations of struggle and amendment, widening the meaning of liberty, citizenship, equality, and freedom. This complete edition presents the Preamble, all seven Articles, and all twenty-seven Amendments, each introduced by a clear civic explanation before the official text.
What We Made
A richly illustrated countdown of the 100 inventions that most transformed human civilization—from the barcode to agriculture—ranked by their effects on life, health, knowledge, prosperity, communication, transportation, and everything invented afterward.
The Constitution of the United States: A Tall-Tale Adventure
When a runaway People’s Press barrels across a fantastical republic, Moxie, Jasper, and Splotch discover how the Constitution places power in the people’s hands, limits government, protects individual rights, and gives citizens the tools to keep freedom alive. A continuous illustrated adventure through the Preamble, seven Articles, and all twenty-seven Amendments—each paired with a clear civic explanation and exact words from the Constitution.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Alice follows a waistcoated White Rabbit into a dream world of impossible size changes, argumentative animals, mad tea, living playing cards, and logic turned delightfully upside down.
Winnie-the-Pooh
Pooh and his friends follow mysterious tracks, hunt for honey, lose a tail, brave a flood, and discover the small adventures of friendship in the Forest.
The House at Pooh Corner
Tigger arrives in the Forest, Pooh invents a game, Piglet does a very grand thing, and Christopher Robin shares one last enchanted adventure with his Bear.
Hermit and the Path to the Hundred Acre Wood
Hermit follows a winding stream into the Hundred Acre Wood, where Pooh and his friends turn his search for a pond into an unexpected journey of friendship.
The Missing Wagon
Opening preview: freight driver Jonah Pike and his hired ox team carry wages and supplies south from Rattler’s Bluff, where a bad road and a watched camp lead toward Chalk Creek.
The Cat of Bubastes
A young Rebu prince and his faithful guardian are carried to ancient Egypt, where friendship, a sacred cat, and a deadly temple conspiracy send them on a perilous journey toward freedom and home.