Journey to the Center of the Earth

• Genre: Fiction; classic adventure/science fiction
• Originally Published: 1864
• Reading Level/Interest: Lexile 960L; grades 9-12; college/adult
• Structure/Length: 46 chapters; approx. 241 pages; approx. 10 hours on audio
• Protagonist and Central Conflict: Professor Otto Lidenbrock tells the story of his quest to find a path to the center of the Earth, starting at a crater in Iceland and continuing to the discovery of a subterranean sea and forest.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Dated, racist language (Chapter 38)

Jules Verne, Author

• Bio: 1828-1905; born in Nantes, France; expressed a strong desire for adventure at a young age; studied law but soon turned to writing stories and plays; worked at the Théâtre Lyrique and produced his plays there; also became a stockbroker; collaborated with editor and publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel and found success with a series of adventure stories, Extraordinary Voyages (which includes Journey to the Center of the Earth), and other “scientific fictions”; commercially successful in his lifetime, but not critically acclaimed until years after his death; now regarded as a highly influential forerunner of the modern science fiction genre
• Other Works: Five Weeks in a Balloon (1863); Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870); Around the World in Eighty Days (1872); The Mysterious Island (1875); Lighthouse at the End of the World (1905)