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Dawson's Creek: Shifting into Overdrive | |
Publisher: Macmillan Elementary readers
Author: C. J. Anders
60 pages
Price: £2.55
ISBN 0333 97320 8
Ahhh ... summer. Time to relax, head for the beach and ... practice your English? Yes, cou can (and you should) keep practicing your English even when you are on holiday. But you don't want to spend your free time fighting with grammar structures and exam practice, so why not find a book you like, written in easy English at your level? For this review we have chosen a book based on the popular TV series Dawson's Creek, but if you are not a fan of Dawson's Creek, don't worry - you don't need to know the series to enjoy the book, and if this is still not for you, there are many other titles to choose from.
For the elementary readers, you need a vocabulary of about 1100 words. By reading these words in a story, and seeing them again and again in different places, you learn the words without even knowing that you are learning them. The sentences are short, and do not have more than two clauses. The story in the book is easy to understand, and you are given some questions to answer at the end to make sure that you know what you have just read! There are no idioms, and the book explains any references to US culture (Dawson's Creek is in the USA)
The book has several pictures, which are supposed to help you understand the story, but in this book, it was just black and white photos of Dawson's Creek characters looking beautiful for the camera. There is a picture vocabulary at the beginning to help you with some of the most important parts of the story, and you also get a short description at the beginning about each of the characters, telling you of their age, personal relationships and so on.
Who is this book for? Well, if you are a Dawson's Creek fan at the elementary level, this is the perfect book for you. If you want to practice your elementary reading skills, then this is an easy and relaxing way to do it. However, if you are over 30 years old you might want to look at some of the other books in the series, or at the Macmillan classics, which are books written in the same way, but these are the great classics of the English language, rewritten for English learners. To get you started look at the English for Everybody library and check your level by trying a reading practice there.
Verdict: Good for Dawson's Creek fans, otherwise okay.
Assessment 7/10