Real Reads
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. The books can be enjoyed by able readers in middle primary, and allow older children with literacy difficulties to engage with great stories. The books are also useful in the teaching of English as an additional language. 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. These works are not lightly called ‘classics’, nor does Real Reads shy away from ‘difficult’ texts and strange foreign works. They make the world’s greatest literature, from William Shakespeare to Mark Twain, from Jane Austen to the Ramayana, from the New Testament to the Chinese classic Journey to the West, readily accessible through masterful retellings.