The Adventures of Pinocchio (ESL/EFL Version with Audio)

Qiliang Feng

百萬英語閱讀計劃

About this ebook

This is Book 1, Collection III, of the Million-Word Reading Project (MWRP) readers. It is suitable for learners with a basic vocabulary of 1,500 words.

Million-Word Reading Project (MWRP) is a reading project for ESL/EFL learners at the elementary level (with a basic vocabulary of 1,500 words). In two years, for about fifteen minutes each day, an ESL/EFL learner can read one million words, and reach the upper-intermediate level, gaining a vocabulary of about 3,500 words and a large number of expressions.

Text Information

　Readability | 82.1

　Total word count | 24183

　Words beyond 1500 | 1133

　Unknown word percentage (%) | 4.69

　Unknown headword occurrence | 3.25

　Unknown words that occur 5 times or more | 64

　Unknown words that occur 2 times or more | 193

Synopsis

Poor Geppetto carves a marionette and names it Pinocchio. Pinocchio wishes to become a real child. But like many children, he is naughty and often runs away from school. After many adventures, he is taken to the Land of Toys. There, he turns into a donkey. And at last, he falls into the belly of a big shark….
Can his wish be realized after all?

This book is rewritten from “The Adventures of Pinocchio” by the Italian author C. Collodi (1826 – 1890), published in 1880. It has been translated into over 240 languages worldwide and has been made into plays and films many times.

About the author

Carlo Collodi was born Carlo Lorenzini in Florence. He joined a seminary as a young man, but Collodi found politics more interesting, as the movement for Italian national unification spread. At the age of 22, he became a journalist to work for the Italian independence struggle. In 1848 he founded the satirical journal Il Lampione, which was suppressed in 1849. His next periodical, La Scaramuccia, was more fortunate, and in 1860 he revived Il Lampione again. Collodi also wrote comedies and edited newspapers and reviews. He took the pseudonym 'Collodi' from the name of the town, where his mother was born and where he spent time as a boy. In 1861, when Italy became a united nation, Collodi gave up journalism. After 1870 he settled down as a theatrical censor and magazine editor. He turned soon to children's fantasy, translating Italian versions of the fairy tales of the French writer Charles Perrault's. Collodi also began to write his own children's stories, including a series about a character named Giannettino. The first chapter of Pinocchio appeared in the Giornale dei bambini in 1881, and became an immediate success, Collodi died in Florence on October 26, 1890.