Twelve Years a Slave is the extraordinary true story of Solomon Northup, a free black man living in New York State who, in 1841, was kidnapped and sold into slavery. This simplified version condenses Northup’s memoirs for students of English and is interspersed with stills from the 2013 Oscar award winning film. Level 3 (Intermediate): For students with 3+ years of English – CEF Stage B1. 1500 headwords (story: up to 10,000 words) Scholastic ELT Secondary Readers are a series of contemporary film and TV adaptations, original teenage fiction, classic literature and biographies. Specifically targeted at teenagers learning English, they are published at five levels following a carefully graded syllabus.