Book excerpt: In the days not long after the pharaohs in Egypt, there lived a woman in China. Leizu (say lee - zhoo) was an empress. She lived in a beautiful palace in China. The palace had a huge garden filled with many trees and flowers. Leizu and her husband, Hoangti loved to walk through their gardens. The emperor and his wife loved their people and always thought of their happiness. One morning Hoangti and his wife were in the beautiful palace garden. They walked up and down, up and down, talking of their people. They needed to find a way to make their people happy. If they did not, the people might follow a different leader. The emperor talked on and on of how to help his people. They needed money and things they could trade. They also needed a new way to make clothes. Find out about this empress who discovered how to unwind the cocoon of the silkworm and weave the threads into cloth in this 15-minute biography. Ages 8 and up. LearningIsland.com believes in the value of children practicing reading for 15 minutes every day. Our 15-Minute Books give children lots of fun, exciting choices to read, from classic stories, to mysteries, to books of knowledge. Many books are appropriate for hi-lo readers. Open the world of reading to a child by having them read for 15 minutes a day.