'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 while she said
her last farewell. A cacophony of cracking timber and rushing water
signaled her end and then she was silent, slipping into the watery
grave. The bravest ship, she had struggled to the bitter end and now she
was gone. Endurance - well named.' When his ship Endurance sinks in the
icy Antarctic, Ernest Shackleton is left with the responsibility of
getting his crew safely back home. Can they survive the crossing of
dangerous ice floes and setting up camp on the remote Elephant Island?
But nobody knows where they are unless somebody can sail the tiny
lifeboat across eight hundred miles of the world's most dangerous seas.
Can it be done?
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.
