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?

Real Reads are accessible texts designed to support the literacy development of primary and lower secondary age children while introducing them to the riches of our international literary heritage. Each book is a retelling of a work of great literature from one of the world’s greatest cultures, fitted into a 64-page book, making classic stories, dramas and histories available to intelligent young readers as a bridge to the full texts, to language students wanting access to other cultures, and to adult readers who are unlikely ever to read the original versions.