I am kinda doing this one for fun. If you were to think back to your childhood did you have a favourite book or maybe a few favourites, books that tragically are no longer on your bookshelf, but that you wish you could read again, even one more time. Maybe this becomes even more the case whe you have small children with whom you would like to share the same stories and adventures with. In my case I would say the following - 

• The Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse
• The Starstormers Series (five books)
• Hardy Boy Mysteries (although I only had three of them)
• Stig of the Dump
• Danny the Champion of the World
• The Silver Sword
• The Mist Lizard

In the case of The Silver Sword I have been able to get hold of a recent print and I am fairly confident that I can get hold of Danny the Champion of the World, but I want to focus on the latter. After a lot of searching and paying a lot more than its cover price I was finally able to get hold of The Mist Lizard we I devoured hungrily with a mixture of excitement, nostalgia and memory. 

Later on I began to think about the process that draws us to a particular book and I decided to replicate it to stimulate discussion with my students. I think, certainly to me, that the process goes like this.

• Look at the cover.
• Read the back blurb (yes Publishers actually call it that!)
• Maybe Read the first page.

So here we go, this is how the lesson is presented along side all images of the  images which I have lifted off my website. Please bear in mind that this resource is aimed at non-native speakers of English.

The Book Cover

Discussion Questions (Part 1)

Based on the front cover and the information on the back cover answer the following questions.

1. How would this story appeal to children?

2. Would the picture on the front be a bit scary for some children and would this make the book more or less attractive to read?

3. Would you have read this story as a child (based on the cover only)? Why (not)?

4. What do you think could happen in the story?

The First Page

Now read the first page from the book before answering the questions below.

Discussion Questions (Part 2)

1. How does the author immediately get the attention of the reader?

2. What makes it easier for children to relate to the characters in the story?

3. It is often said that with the internet and smart technology that children don’t read enough nowadays? Would you agree with this? If not have reading habits changed? If things have changed is this a good thing? Should children be encouraged to read more traditional books as part of their learning?

One of the interesting things that can also come out of this resource for my students is that they have a real comparison with a native speaker in terms of what they know and understand. The book clearly shows that it is targetted at 11-14 year olds - bearing in mind that is a native speaker and so it is expected to be quite challenging for the non-native possibly even up to C1 (Advanced) level. When I look at the resource I do try to be honest about the words that I didn't know at the time - or as much as my memory allows.

Hope you have enjoyed the read. What were your favourites when you were growing up.