# The Old Man and the Sea

**Author:** Ernest Hemingway
**Lexile:** 940L
**Grade range:** Grades 8–12
**Age range:** 13–18
**First published:** 1952
**Page count:** 128
**Genre:** Novella
**ISBN-13:** `9780684801223`
**ISBN-10:** `0684801221`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/the-old-man-and-the-sea
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

An aging Cuban fisherman, Santiago, struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Hemingway's Pulitzer Prize-winning novella — cited in his 1954 Nobel commendation — is a near-universal 8th-11th grade text for teaching Hemingway's iceberg style, symbolism, and the code hero.

## Themes

- perseverance
- pride
- defeat
- nature
- aging

## Content notes

- violence (animal)
- physical suffering

Common Sense Media age recommendation: 12+

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