American Classics
Real Reads has embarked on an ambitious programme of North American classics to add to the Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville titles which are already firm favourites. Where better to start than with The Great Gatsby, sensationally revitalised through Baz Luhrmann’s movie adaptation starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan?
Summer of 2014 saw another four key Real Reads American classics – Stephen Crane’s moving Civil War narrative The Red Badge of Courage, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s powerful tale of honour and redemption The Scarlet Letter, Jack London’s tale of animal fortitude The Call of the Wild, and Kate Chopin’s pioneering feminist classic The Awakening.
Huckleberry Finn
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Illustrated by
ISBN: 978-1-906230-19-7
Lexile® Rating: 650L what is this?
F&P Level: W what is this?
£7.99
Huckleberry Finn would rather be free than ‘sivilized’.
Adventures with Tom Sawyer made Huck rich – but his Pap is a violent drunk and the broad Mississippi is the road to liberty. Huck’s raft can carry him and his friend Jim, a runaway slave, to safety.
When they lose their way one foggy night, though, they are headed downriver into dangerous territory. How can one small boy pilot his way through a land of mortal feuds, lynch mobs and tricksters?
When life and freedom are at risk, how can Huck figure out the difference between wrong and right?
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Moby Dick
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Illustrated by
ISBN: 978-1-906230-72-2
Lexile® Rating: 730L what is this?
ATOS®/AR Level: 4.5 what is this?
F&P Level: Y what is this?
£7.99
‘Breach your last to the sun, Moby Dick!’ cried Ahab. ‘Thy hour and thy harpoon are at hand!’
Why does Captain Ahab look like a man who’s being crucified? How did he come by that hideous scar and the false leg made of a whale’s bone? And why is he obsessed by Moby Dick, the great white whale?
Ishmael, the new recruit, has other strange shipmates. There’s Queequeg for instance, covered in weird tattoos and selling shrunken human heads. And what of the shadowy figures creeping on board the whaling ship Pequod?
Ahab leads them all in reckless pursuit of Moby Dick. Will he succeed in killing the whale, or will Moby Dick lure Ahab and his crew to destruction?
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The Awakening
What price will Edna Pontellier pay to be free?
She seems to have everything she needs – her loving husband Léonce, two beautiful children, and a wonderful home in turn-of-the-century New Orleans. But deep inside her burns a creative fire that longs to be unleashed.
One summer changes everything. When Edna meets Robert, she starts to question all that she was taught to believe. Is her comfortable marriage nothing more than a cage? Will she ever be able to explore her creativity and passion to the full? Is it possible for a woman to be responsible for the needs of others and still to live her own life to the full?
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The Call of the Wild
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Illustrated by
ISBN: 978-1-906230-77-7
ATOS®/AR Level: 6.1 what is this?
F&P Level: X what is this?
£7.99
Buck recognised the wild brother. He was whining softly, and they touched noses. A second wolf, old and battle-scarred, came forward and sniffed noses with him; he sat down, pointed his nose at the moon, and broke out in a long wolf howl. Buck, too, sat down and howled.
Buck, a big, powerful dog, is kidnapped from his California home and sold as a sled dog in the Arctic. In his new environment he must learn quickly how to deal with man’s club and dog’s fang, or he will not be able to survive.
He is transformed by two opposing forces – his love for John Thornton who saved his life, and the memories that awaken within him of the ways of his ancestors, both dogs and wolves. How will Buck survive, and not just survive, but become a leader of dogs and eventually a leader of wolves?
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The Great Gatsby
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Illustrated by
ISBN: 978-1-906230-74-6
Lexile® Rating: 900L what is this?
ATOS®/AR Level: 5.7 what is this?
F&P Level: Z what is this?
£7.99
Nick Carraway’s mysterious neighbour Gatsby gazes across the dark bay at a distant green light.
As the summer unfolds, Nick is drawn into Gatsby’s world of luxury cars, speedboats and extravagant parties. But the more he hears about Gatsby – even from what Gatsby himself tells him – the less he is sure of the truth. Did Gatsby really go to Oxford University? Was he a hero in the war? Did he once kill a man?
Nick recalls how he came to know Gatsby. He recounts how he enters the world of his cousin Daisy and her wealthy husband Tom. But does their money make them any happier? How do everybody’s stories connect?
Will you come to know the real Gatsby after reading Nick’s account of that fateful summer?
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The Red Badge of Courage
Henry Fleming leaves his widowed mother behind and marches off to join a war that is tearing his country apart.
His regiment has yet to be tested in the fire of battle. Together the soldiers wait while distant guns rumble and the lights of enemy campfires flicker on the hills beyond a darkened river.
The young man recalls his childhood dreams of valiant combat. Will he pass the test and return home to tell others of his triumphs on the battlefield? Or will he flee at the first sign of real danger?
And what of his fellow soldiers, whose lives are caught up with his once the fighting begins? Will they examine the young man for any sign of real courage – or will he slink away in shame?
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The Scarlet Letter
Retold by
Illustrated by
ISBN: 978-1-906230-76-0
ATOS®/AR Level: 6.1 what is this?
F&P Level: Z what is this?
£7.99
Hester Prynne stands defiantly on a scaffold before hostile Puritans in seventeenth-century Boston, Massachusetts.
The baby in her arms and the bright scarlet letter ‘A’ on her gown are evidence and punishment for the shame she has brought on her religious neighbours.
Will Hester continue to conceal the name of the husband who sent her away from Europe years before as well as that of the father of her baby? Will the husband get his revenge on the man who has shamed him? Will that man admit his past, and join Hester and her daughter Pearl?
Or is the matter out of their hands, waiting to be decided between the forces of the Lord and of Satan?
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Tom Sawyer
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Illustrated by
ISBN: 978-1-906230-18-0
Lexile® Rating: 600L what is this?
F&P Level: W what is this?
£7.99
Tom Sawyer is a respectable boy in a little Mississippi River town. Huck Finn is a freedom-loving, neglected outcast. What better playmate could Tom want?
One night, innocent games of pirates and Robin Hood turn serious when the boys witness a murder in the graveyard. The murderer will kill them if they tell the truth. What should they do?
The boys decide to search for the murderer’s treasure. What risks will they take? Who else will they endanger? Will they have the courage and quick thinking to escape from dark caverns, cross the mighty Mississippi, and outwit the criminals? Will they find what they are looking for?
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