GIRL IN ICE is a mystery, a sci-fi possibility, an anthropological treatise on linguistics and the etymology andA definite genre blender, to be sure!
GIRL IN ICE is a mystery, a sci-fi possibility, an anthropological treatise on linguistics and the etymology and kinship of dead languages couched in a psychological thriller, a cautionary tale on climate warming, a human drama of a pathologically introverted young woman suffering from anxiety disorder, a story of scientific exploration in the far northern reaches of Greenland – gosh, what’s not to like?
Val Chesterfield is a linguist, in fact, she’s THE world’s acknowledged expert in dead Nordic languages. So when a scientist conducting climate research in the all too brief summer of Arctic Greenland manages a scientific impossibility – thawing a young girl, deep frozen in a glacier for centuries, and bringing her back to life – Chesterfield is called in an attempt to communicate with the young girl speaking a language that seems to bear no relationship to any known language on the planet, living or dead. Only two problems (aside from the scientific issues, of course) – Val’s anxiety disorder is near crippling in its intensity and renders her virtually housebound; and, the research outpost in Greenland is the location where her brother ostensibly committed suicide by walking out of the warmth of the lab and freezing himself to death in the open tundra. And (no guessing necessary here!!) Val has never believed the verdict of suicide and is convinced her brother was murdered but the number of possible suspects is vanishingly small!
Full points to the author for her imagination and ability to pull together a list of plot components that is delicious on the face of it. And there is no doubt that the author’s portrayal of Val’s scientific efforts to parse the young girl’s language and to communicate with her were absolutely intriguing and completely convincing. In addition, the gritty portrayal of the difficulties of living, working, and completing scientific research in one of the harshest environments on the planet was near poetic in its realistic intensity. But, for me (a convinced diehard sci-fi fan and a believer in allowing an author plenty of room for literary license), the science was simply too far over the top (I think?!) I suppose I have to acknowledge that just because something has never been done and would currently be considered impossible doesn’t mean that it will forever be so but …
Enjoyable and definitely recommended. Just set your scientific judgment aside and let the story wash over you.
Ella les dijo a sus amigas, “No me gustan los Mexicanos. ¡Vamos!”
Escrito para estudiantes de español con sólo trescientas palabras, PATRICIA VA A CALIElla les dijo a sus amigas, “No me gustan los Mexicanos. ¡Vamos!”
Escrito para estudiantes de español con sólo trescientas palabras, PATRICIA VA A CALIFORNIA es una novela breve y fácil de leer. Aún mejor, después de uno o dos capítulos, yo descubré que podía leerla y entender la historia sin traducción … bueno, casi. Para las palabras más difíciles, hay un diccionario muy pequeño en el fin de cada capítulo.
Y ¿de que trata esta historia? Algo que es importante en el mundo de hoy.
Patricia es una jovencita de Guatemala que va a California como estudiante de intercambio para aprender inglés. Ella conoce a mucha gente muy simpática pero también conoce a una racista, una chica muy popular en la escuela a la que no le gustan los mexicanos. Pero, ¿cómo cambian sus vidas cuando se encuentran juntas en una situación peligrosa?
PATRICIA VA A CALIFORNIA no ganará ningún premio literario pero hace lo que fue escrito para hacer. Enseña a los estudiantes principiantes a leer y, más importante, a pensar en español. Y, como yo, lo disfrutarán - la historia, el mensaje y el aprendizaje. Bien hecho, Señor Ray.
From the Rapid Reads web site, "Rapid Reads are short novels and nonfiction books for adult readers. They arPresenting Chief of Police, Maxine Benson!
From the Rapid Reads web site, "Rapid Reads are short novels and nonfiction books for adult readers. They are intended for a diverse audience, including ESL students, reluctant readers, adults who struggle with literacy and anyone who wants a high-interest quick read. Reading levels from grade 2 to 6." Obviously these constraints will limit the ability of an excellent author like John Lawrence Reynolds to flex his thriller muscles to their full capacity. A MURDER FOR MAX, while falling well short of Reynolds’ previous work such as THE MAN WHO MURDERED GOD, is a workmanlike mystery novella wherein small town neophyte female police chief Maxine Benson struggles against entrenched misogyny to solve her first murder.
Enjoyable but don’t expect any overwhelming thrills or chills. I’m hoping to be able to find a similar series of novels in German and Spanish, the languages that I’m currently spending quality Covid-19 time attempting to learn on my own.
Ein ausgezeichneter erster wirklicher deutscher Roman
An A level challenge based on a vocabulary of approximately 600 words, Easy Readers has created aEin ausgezeichneter erster wirklicher deutscher Roman
An A level challenge based on a vocabulary of approximately 600 words, Easy Readers has created an interesting, challenging read appropriate to second year students of the German language. The difficulty level at which the publishers have set this abridged and modified version of Erich Kästner's classic children's novel is perfect. The first couple of chapters seem heavy going indeed and the easily discouraged student, forced to resort to a dictionary on numerous occasions might be tempted to set the book aside as simply beyond his or her capabilities. But the more persevering student soon discovers (as I did to my surprised delight) that he or she is reading (slowly, to be sure) but without the assistance of any dictionary at all and relying solely on context to determine the meaning of never before seen words and brand new colloquial German sentence structures.
What's even better is that DAS DOPPELTE LOTTCHEN, as the basis for the well-known English story, THE PARENT TRAP is a REAL story with real emotions and real outcomes. I found that I was enjoying reading the story for its own sake ... NOT just because I was assigned the reading as part of a German class.
If you liked Tintin, you'll enjoy Mortimer and Blake!
With the imminent release of Steven Spielberg's latest animated movie, there are probably very feIf you liked Tintin, you'll enjoy Mortimer and Blake!
With the imminent release of Steven Spielberg's latest animated movie, there are probably very few North Americans, young and old alike, who are unaware of TINTIN, the world famous creation of Belgian author Hergé, whose classic cartoon albums have sold 350 million copies in over 80 different languages. Most of us however (including myself, I don't mind admitting, until very recently by happy discovery) are unaware of a similar cartoon creation by Hergé's fellow author and contemporary, Edgar Jacobs. Jacob's characters, MORTIMER AND BLAKE, first appeared in the Belgian magazine TINTIN in 1946.
Just as Hergé's stories and Tintin's investigations were children of their times, Jacobs has not hesitated to place his stories firmly in the rapidly chilling climate of the post WWII Cold War in which the Russians and the yellow hordes of the Far East were now seen as megalomaniacal enemies to be feared and stopped at all costs. Jacobs' main characters were Professor Mortimer, a leading physicist of Scottish descent and the stereotypical British gentlemen; Captain Blake, a Welsh born officer in Her Majesty's armed forces, later head of MI5; and, finally, the villainous Captain Olrick, head of intelligence for the Oriental dictator and would-be ruler of the world, Basam Damdu.
LE SECRET DE L'ESPADON, TOME 1 (The Secret of the Swordfish, Vol 1), opens as Basam Damdu and Captain Olrick unleash a virulent attack on the world. One after another - Paris, London, Rome, Bombay - the world's greatest cities are reduced to smouldering rubble. Narrowly escaping the bombing of Scawfell, a military base in England, Blake and Mortimer flee in the "Golden Rocket" with top-secret plans to a powerful new weapon - Swordfish - probably the world's last and only chance to turn back certain defeat by the "Golden Empire". But Olrick is hard on their heels, engaging in a desperate chase to capture Mortimer and Blake and recover the secret plans. Not surprisingly, Volume 1 ends on a cliff-hanger with the yellow forces cornering Mortimer and Blake on the second story of their hotel and bursting into their room. Of course, we won't find out what happens next until Volume 2.
Exciting stuff indeed that will appeal to readers both young and young at heart. Despite the level of war-oriented violence, I found nothing sufficiently graphic that, in my opinion, would render this comic album inappropriate for virtually any age. Very enjoyable indeed. I look forward to Volume 2.
Pitched at a level slightly beyond a primer, Einstein und das tote Kaninchen (Einstein and the Dead Rabbit) could beEin leichter Krimi für Jugendliche
Pitched at a level slightly beyond a primer, Einstein und das tote Kaninchen (Einstein and the Dead Rabbit) could be called a very light mystery for very young German readers. Of course, I wasn't reading it because I'm a young German reader. I bought this as a souvenir when I was in Vienna, because I'm a beginning German reader.
Albert Neumann, nicknamed Einstein by all his friends, raises rabbits. When he finds his favourite rabbit, Mister X, dead on the eve of the biggest and most important competition in the area, Einstein is convinced that poison is the culprit. He also thinks that his neighbour, Mr Feldmann, a fellow breeder and the only real competition for Mr X, is behind the nasty deed. Einstein and his close friends set out to prove their case.
Albert Neumann, wer bei allen seinen Freunde Einstein heißt, züchtet Kaninchen. Sein Lieblingskaninchen, Mister X, ist tot und am nächste Samstag ist die große Ausstellung! An der Sache ist doch was faul. Einstein wisst, dass da etwas dahinter steckt. Hat sein Nachbar, Herr Feldmann, Mister X vergiftet?
I wish I could say that I read this beguiling little mystery without benefit of my trusty German-English dictionary but, sadly, my skills are not at that level ... yet! But with the help of great books like this one, I've no doubt that I'll get there soon enough. I had a lot of fun reading the story at the surface level and attempting to puzzle my way through a sprinkling of colloquial German idioms such as :
VOL 714 POUR SYDNEY is not your average comic book adventure story crafted merely for young readers.
Tintin, his dogPas votre histoire comique moyenne!
VOL 714 POUR SYDNEY is not your average comic book adventure story crafted merely for young readers.
Tintin, his dog Snowy, and their friends Captain Haddock and Calculus are en route to Sydney to attend an astronautical conference. During a brief stop over in Jakarta, they meet millionaire, Laszlo Carreidas, known as "the man who never laughs". When the antics of the deaf and lovable Professor Calculus actually manage to make Carreidas howl with laughter, he expresses his appreciation by inviting them to continue their journey to Sydney aboard his prototype business jet, the Carreidas 160.
When the jet is hijacked, our intrepid group of travelers find themselves in the power of greedy criminals who want a good deal more than the prototype jet ... they're also determined to lay their hands on the wealth that Carreidas has squirreled away in a numbered Swiss bank account. And, of course, they're not planning on leaving any witnesses behind.
Je n'avais que dix ans quand j'ai lu VOL 714 (en anglais) la première fois. Presque cinquante ans plus tard, l'histoire, c'est encore puissante et passionante; les actions, même les émotions transmises par l'oeuvre d'art sont convaincantes; et, bien sur, Tournesol et Haddock sont plus amusants, comiques et drôles que jamais. Avec des volcans, lave chaude et des tremblements de terre, des soucoupes volantes, une civilisation ancienne et un temple souterrain, hypnose et amnésie collective, VOL 714 POUR SYDNEY est une histoire bien étrange qui ne peut pas échouer à vous amuser. Des parents peuvent être rassurés qu'elle se prête bien aux lecteurs de n'importe quel age.
The reason I chose to read the original French edition so many years later was simply to brush up on my French reading skills which I have left to languish unattended and untested for far too long. It seems I made the perfect choice. Not only did the hints from the story-line as revealed through the art mean that I didn't have to consult a French-English dictionary even once, I was also thrilled to be able to interpret several French idioms purely on the basis of context! For example:
"Je vous tiens à l'oeil" ... literally, "I'm holding you to the eye" ... figuratively, "I've got my eye on you"
"La voie est libre" ... literally, "the way is free: ... figuratively, "the coast is clear"
"J'ai la chair de poule" ... literally, "I have chicken flesh" ... figuratively, "I've got goose bumps"
Great fun to read for any purpose and certainly of significant value in brushing up on French reading skills at an intermediate level.
Lynn Truss, a proud, self-proclaimed snobbish pedant, makes no bones about the fact that her short book, EATS, SHOI am not a pickled herring salesman!
Lynn Truss, a proud, self-proclaimed snobbish pedant, makes no bones about the fact that her short book, EATS, SHOOTS AND LEAVES is really an extended essay on pedantry - a style book, a prescriptive grammar, a manifesto, a rant and, perhaps saddest of all, a eulogy - bemoaning the demise of the correct use of punctuation in the written English word today.
As a reader, writer and speaker who, frankly, takes pride in an extensive vocabulary and takes pains to use our magnificent language correctly, I found myself nodding vigorously in agreement as Truss eloquently spoke about the purpose of correct punctuation. She helps us to understand that commas, apostrophes, colons and the other denizens of our pantheon of punctuation marks are aids and signs on a road map for communication without misunderstanding. They are an invaluable assistance to reading out loud with the proper interpretation, lilt and intonation that an author intended in the same fashion as a well annotated musical score enables a musician to interpret music as a composer meant it to be played.
EATS, SHOOTS AND LEAVES also provides us with snippets of the history of punctuation. I wager that few of us were aware that the apostrophe first appeared as early as the 16th century.
If history and a pedantic rant delivered with a school marm attitude, a baleful glare and a wrathful wagging finger were all we got from a reading of EATS, SHOOTS AND LEAVES, I'm sure most of us would have yawned in complete boredom and Lynn Truss's novel would not likely have reached the list of best sellers. But, thankfully, EATS, SHOOTS AND LEAVES is also liberally sprinkled with a very healthy dose of dry as dust British wit, humour and sarcasm that hit my funny bone with a full-sized mallet. One of my favourites was the story of a community group who had built an enormous playground for the children of their neighbourhood and advertised it with the sign "GIANT KID'S PLAYGROUND". To the amazement of the group that had built the facility, it was hardly ever used. Lynn Truss, with tongue in cheek, suggested it was probably because everyone was terrified of meeting the giant kid.
By the way, the much maligned salesman of this review's title is actually a complete tee-totaller. He is, however, a very exceptional pickled-herring salesman! (If you'll forgive my mixed metaphors, a very different kettle of fish, indeed). This witty little example shows how the poor, lowly, and much misunderstood dash can eliminate any possibility of misunderstanding the sentence.
Dans la société moderne d'aujourd'hui, il y en a qui n'ont pas encore trouvé leur bonheur, d'autres qui lLe bonheur est impossible quand on est seul
Dans la société moderne d'aujourd'hui, il y en a qui n'ont pas encore trouvé leur bonheur, d'autres qui le chercheront pendant toute leur vie sans jamais le trouver et encore ceux qui se sont dit que ce que leur manque pourrait se trouver dans la paix de solitude. Sans doute, il y en a qui sont convaincus que la paix, le silence, le contentement, la tranquillité d'esprit et l'auto-détermination qu'on y trouve sont pareils au bonheur. Évidemment, Jacques Poulin n'y croit pas. Dans LES GRANDES MARÉES, il nous montre, avec une prose à la fois drôle, douce, mélodieuse et avare, que le bonheur doit être partagé. Bien que le bonheur puisse n'avoir qu'une vie courte, il ne reste aucune doute qu'il a besoin, pas seulement d' être partagé, mais aussi du souci, de la communication, de la compassion et d'un vrai sens de communauté.
TPRS is a living foreign language teaching method that stands for Teaching Proficiency through Reading anUna primera historia completamente en español
TPRS is a living foreign language teaching method that stands for Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling created by a Spanish teacher, Blaine Ray, in the late 1980’s. Pobre Ana is the first and easiest novel is a series of four TPRS efforts written by Blaine Ray for first year students of the Spanish language. With a vocabulary of only 300 words, Pobre Ana will clearly not win any prizes for literary value or plot development. But it’s short, it’s easy and its value is in demonstrating to a student who may be intimidated or afraid that they are making no progress that have actually learned a significant amount of Spanish.
Ana is a 15 year old angsty teenager (no … let’s make that spoiled, ego-centric and self-centered 15 year old brat) from California who feels herself immensely hard done by. She thinks her parents never appreciate anything she does and do nothing but complain to her or yell at her. She thinks they are poor and bemoans the fact that there never seems to be any money for new clothes or eating out in restaurants. When she has the opportunity to go on a trip to live with a Mexican family for a couple of months on her school’s dime, she jumps at the chance and hopes that it will be an opportunity, at least for a short while, to get away from her problems. Maybe it will be but, then again, maybe it won’t!
Consider this English translation of the opening paragraph in the “novel”:
“Ana is a girl with problems. She has lots of problems. She has problems with her friends and her family. She’s a normal girl but she has many problems.”
The repetition, as you might have guessed, is intentional. It gives the reader a chance to learn vocabulary, to have it stick in the brain, to see it in different grammatical placements and constructions and, ultimately, to read and understand a sentence in the target language, Spanish, without going through the mental intermediary of translation into English. The series is first rate and a great way to develop vocabulary, competency and confidence in Spanish with a minimum of pain or forced effort. I’m looking forward to challenging the remaining three books in the series as well.
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