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.
A bright flash of lightning lit up the darkness and showed me the horrible truth – the stairs came to a sudden stop, and if I had taken onemore step I would have plunged to my death upon the flagstones...
Dr Livesey opened up the folded paper – it was a hand-drawn map of a small island. My heart raced as I saw the three crosses in red ink, and next to them the following words: 'Most of the treasure...
Clouds of multi-coloured fish rose from our feet like surprised birds from long grass. Every so often I caught a glimpse of the gleaming eyes of enormous crabs, their gigantic claws threatening to bar...
Just beyond me on the rocky floor of the volcanic crater was the gaping vertical shaft which marked the starting point of our journey. As I gazed into its fearful depths my hair stood on end and my...
A guard had stepped back into the path of a train and been crushed beneath the wheels. He had been killed instantly. When Anna Karenina arrives at the scene of a horrible accident, it is the beginning...
‘At 5 o’clock on the evening of November 21st, after the ice had drawn back like pall bearers at a funeral, Endurance slipped lower in the water, her stern pointing skywards. We stood in silence...
As Dimitry struck him Grigory screamed and fell back, the blood streaming horribly from his head. Dimitry bent over him, trying to stop the flow with his handkerchief which turned soaking red in an...
‘I am not thinking of learning any profession whatsoever.’ Though Aladdin's childhood had been full of beauty, comfort and happiness, without any trace of sadness or sorrow, he entirely failed to...
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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. 
