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Pearls and Sharks

Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne · Episode 6 of 12

This episode is drawn from chapters 24–27 of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, first published in 1870 by French novelist Jules Verne, a founder of science fiction. The novel reflects its era; a few period terms have been modernised. Verne imagined submarine technology decades before it existed, but his deeper subject is moral: can a man who hates the world still love the individual? The shark fight is one of the novel's most famous scenes, and Nemo's declaration of sympathy for the oppressed is the first clear statement of the hatred that will drive him to catastrophe. This reader is worth a young person's time because it shows that courage and charity can coexist with bitterness—and that the battle between them determines what a person becomes.

Band

Blue · Independent readers, confidentTypical starting range: ages 12–14

Length

long · about 878 words in 5 sections · 1 picture

Source

Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, Jules Verne

First published

see the About page in the reader

Regions

Canada · United States

Included formats

• · Web reader and PDF
• · EPUB for e-readers
• · Home-print sheet
• · Folded booklet
• · Binder edition (8.5 × 11)
• · Worksheet
• · Quick Check (10 questions) with answer key
• · Read-aloud script
• · Teacher’s Edition (members)

Readers are engineered from the original public-domain text with AI under HummingRead’s published canon and Content Philosophy, checked by automated audit and sampled by a person. Pictures are made with AI to HummingRead’s brief for each story. How a reader is made.

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