Stress, The Big Goof, Fran’s Story
Reviewed by Jan Weiten, Instructor

Grass Roots Press has recently published a series of seven basic readers for adults who are learning how to read. These books cover a variety of subjects and range in tone from factual to playful. In the different groups of students who field-tested these books, personal tastes made themselves known! No book was a hands-down favourite. We field-tested five of them. Some readers found The Hike, a story of mishaps while hiking in the woods, funny while others found it too unlikely. Some readers found How To Buy a Good Used Car very valuable - a good easy-to-read summary of the important things to consider when buying a car. Others felt they already knew this information or they disagreed with the material. The books that seemed to be the most popular among the group of students are Fran’s Story, Stress, and The Big Goof.

All of the books have the same format. Each book contains 25 to 30 pages. Almost every page has a clear, black and white photograph with a couple of lines of text under it. The books use very simple language, which makes decoding possible even for beginning learners. This format, along with the adult content, is the most valuable aspect of the series for most learners and instructors. As one instructor said, “Everybody could take a turn reading out loud, and they loved that. Even if they didn’t really like the content of a specific book that much, they felt satisfied that they were able to read a whole book from cover to cover.” Another instructor pointed out that “Even the better readers enjoyed the simple language in the text, and the fact that there was a limited amount of text on each page. Students enjoyed reading a book where they did not have to struggle with the vocabulary.”

Here are short reviews of the three favourites.

Fran’s Story

Fran, a single parent, has two kids and a job that is very stressful. On her way home from work, she picks up her kids and stops at the store for some milk. When her son acts up in the store, she hits him, and a witness to the scene tells Fran she is going to call the cops. Fran asks herself, “I love my kids. Am I such a bad mom?”

Students generally responded to the story with a sense of recognition and compassion. One learner said, “I think this happens a lot because that single parent is stressed out because they are doing everything by themselves.” Another learner said, “You can understand where some people are coming from hitting their kids.” Students found “to spank or not to spank” an interesting topic for discussion which led to more discussion about what are good ways to teach your children right from wrong and ways of disciplining without hitting.

Stress

Ann’s life is full of stress. She has a son who doesn’t like school, a sibling who wants to borrow money, and a boss who want her to work more. She can’t sleep, has headaches and turns to junk food for comfort. When Ann asks her friend, Kim, for support, Kim gives her some good advice on how to handle the stress in her life, such as learning how to say ‘no,’ going for daily walks, and eating good food.

This story generated a lot of discussion about stress in students’ lives and healthy ways to deal with stress. A common response to the story was “I have a lot of stress in my life, so I could relate.” One student said, “There was some good ideas to make stress go away. The best idea is to say ‘no.’”

The Big Goof

Jan is in love with Bill. Jan cooks for Bill, mows his lawn and even washes his car, but Bill doesn’t seem to notice. Finally, Bill asks Jan out for coffee.

During their date, Bill talks non-stop about himself, eats like a pig, talks on his cell phone and is mean to the waitress. Jan walks out on Bill. The story ends with the memorable lines, “Jan is happy. But Bill is a big goof.”

Some students and instructors thought this book was entertaining, while others thought that it was just silly. Some learners saw a moral in the story: “The book teaches people not to be mean and not to be goofs.” One learner saw this lesson in the story: “She walked out on him. That was a good move. More women should do that.” In my class, The Big Goof opened up the topic of what constitutes “rude behaviour”.