The year was 1866. Every seaman had the same story. “We saw a giant whale, a hundred metres long. It came near our boat,” they said. “It’s faster and bigger than any sea animal!” The story was in the newspapers and a lot of people talked about it. People were afraid. They wanted to find this monster. “It can’t be a whale,” scientists said. “A big blue whale is only twenty-five or thirty metres long. Perhaps it is a coral reef.” “But a coral reef can’t send water fifty metres into the air,” the seamen answered. “This animal can. We saw it!” It went near one boat in Australian waters. Three days later, it was seven hundred leagues away in the Pacific. “Whales can’t swim seven hundred leagues in three days,” the scientists said. “Perhaps it’s a submarine.” Otto-Classics Graded Readers Series are outstanding classics written by famous writers. The language and vocabulary in the books are controlled and simplified by specialist ELT authors and compilers according to Common European Framework so that they can be easily understood by new learners of English. Depending on the eight levels from A1 to B2+, the longer stories are divided into a number of chapters and every chapter has its own activities. Some of the activities in the books are meant to be done in pairs. You may work with a partner to solve problems and design projects that reflect not only your own thinking but also new ideas you and your mates will discover by working in groups.