| Book of the Month | ||
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer | |
Publisher: Macmillan
Authors: Mark Twain retold by F.H. Cornish
€7.20
ISBN 978-3-19-332956-1
This website offers reading practice for students, and also does a weekly podcast, so were were interested to see that the new range of Macmillan readers do the same thing - they offer reading material, exercises and the option to download audio files to go with the text. We purchased The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in the beginners range. There are other options in starter, elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate and upper. This book is in British English, and needs the reader to understand about 600 words. Having read the book, you can then do the exercises at the back and download the listening files.
The book itself is fairly easy reading, and illustrated by black and white drawings every few pages. An example of the level of the text is this quote 'The two children walked and walked. Sometimes they sat down and rested. It seemed that they had walked for hours.' The story itself, how Tom tries to win the love of young Becky and foil the schemes of the murderous Indian Joe is a good one, and takes up to page 63 to read. The first few pages contain an introduction to the different characters and a description of who Mark Twain was. The eight pages of exercises that follow are standard grammar, comprehension and vocabulary - for example word searches, question formation, and past simple/past continuous selection. The listening download, as far as we were concerned, was a waste of time. First you have to go to the Macmillan page, and search for your book. Then you click on a link which now says 'buy an audio copy'. (Buy? I do not remember having seen that word before.) Then you are given a list of links to places where you can buy the file from. We clicked the first name on the list. According to the site that came up all you have to do next is 1.) Create your account 2.) Download the software 3.) Find and download your file. Whereas on the English for Everybody site you just have to click the link underneath the reading marked 'Listen now'. Was it too hard for Macmillan to have put a link -on their own site- where users could download an .mp3?
Who is this book for? The book itself is a useful vocabulary practice and is fun to read. You may consider it rather overpriced for what it offers, especially as there are free versions available on the web, but these are harder to take to the beach. Anyone who wants to use the listening option needs to be patient and be prepared to pay for it. Nevertheless, even without the listening, it may be a good summer reading project for a class.
Verdict: Reasonable book - apart from the listening.
Assessment 5/10