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The New Coffee Room

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  3. Need book recommendations

Need book recommendations

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  • G George K
    16 Jun 2021, 19:29

    James Joyce Harry Potter?

    K Offline
    K Offline
    Klaus
    wrote on 16 Jun 2021, 19:30 last edited by
    #6

    @george-k said in Need book recommendations:

    Harry Potter?

    Way too complicated and too long.

    J 1 Reply Last reply 16 Jun 2021, 19:44
    • K Klaus
      16 Jun 2021, 19:30

      @george-k said in Need book recommendations:

      Harry Potter?

      Way too complicated and too long.

      J Offline
      J Offline
      Jolly
      wrote on 16 Jun 2021, 19:44 last edited by
      #7

      @klaus said in Need book recommendations:

      @george-k said in Need book recommendations:

      Harry Potter?

      Way too complicated and too long.

      Not the first book or two in the series. Another series would be the Percy Jackson books. A bit dated, but the Heinlein juvenile books like Have Spacesuit, Will Travel or The Rolling Stones would be good.

      Newer stuff would be Al Capone Does My Shirts or maybe A Night Divided. The last one is a Berlin Wall story...

      “Cry havoc and let slip the DOGE of war!”

      Those who cheered as J-6 American prisoners were locked in solitary for 18 months without trial, now suddenly fight tooth and nail for foreign terrorists’ "due process". — Buck Sexton

      K 1 Reply Last reply 16 Jun 2021, 20:11
      • K Klaus
        16 Jun 2021, 19:29

        Sci-Fi might be good. Graphic novels would interest him, but they should contain a non-trivial amount of text - the point is to work on his English skills.

        A Offline
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        Aqua Letifer
        wrote on 16 Jun 2021, 19:48 last edited by Aqua Letifer
        #8

        @klaus said in Need book recommendations:

        Sci-Fi might be good. Graphic novels would interest him, but they should contain a non-trivial amount of text - the point is to work on his English skills.

        Yeah, I don't mean comic books. Graphic novels can be pretty lengthy. You might want to look into Logicomix? Lots of text, pretty easy reading level, but the subject matter might interest you, too, so it might be something you can do together if he's into that?

        Some you might want to look into:

        Holes
        Lord of the Flies (seriously)
        The City of Ember
        Alice in Wonderland
        The Oz series
        The Maze Runner
        Explorer Academy
        The Firefly Code
        The Wild Robot

        Most of those, I believe, are for kids a little younger than he is, but they're also newer and therefore not old and boring.

        The Oz books are (if I remember) easy to read, short, and really engrossing. They're not condescending to kids, either.

        Please love yourself.

        K 2 Replies Last reply 16 Jun 2021, 19:54
        • G Offline
          G Offline
          George K
          wrote on 16 Jun 2021, 19:49 last edited by
          #9

          Actually, what about some of the Tom Swift books?

          "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08

          The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.

          C 1 Reply Last reply 17 Jun 2021, 01:44
          • A Aqua Letifer
            16 Jun 2021, 19:48

            @klaus said in Need book recommendations:

            Sci-Fi might be good. Graphic novels would interest him, but they should contain a non-trivial amount of text - the point is to work on his English skills.

            Yeah, I don't mean comic books. Graphic novels can be pretty lengthy. You might want to look into Logicomix? Lots of text, pretty easy reading level, but the subject matter might interest you, too, so it might be something you can do together if he's into that?

            Some you might want to look into:

            Holes
            Lord of the Flies (seriously)
            The City of Ember
            Alice in Wonderland
            The Oz series
            The Maze Runner
            Explorer Academy
            The Firefly Code
            The Wild Robot

            Most of those, I believe, are for kids a little younger than he is, but they're also newer and therefore not old and boring.

            The Oz books are (if I remember) easy to read, short, and really engrossing. They're not condescending to kids, either.

            K Offline
            K Offline
            Klaus
            wrote on 16 Jun 2021, 19:54 last edited by
            #10

            @aqua-letifer said in Need book recommendations:

            Lord of the Flies (seriously)

            He has actually just started (somewhat hesitantly, after I recommend it) that book in the German translation.

            1 Reply Last reply
            • A Aqua Letifer
              16 Jun 2021, 19:48

              @klaus said in Need book recommendations:

              Sci-Fi might be good. Graphic novels would interest him, but they should contain a non-trivial amount of text - the point is to work on his English skills.

              Yeah, I don't mean comic books. Graphic novels can be pretty lengthy. You might want to look into Logicomix? Lots of text, pretty easy reading level, but the subject matter might interest you, too, so it might be something you can do together if he's into that?

              Some you might want to look into:

              Holes
              Lord of the Flies (seriously)
              The City of Ember
              Alice in Wonderland
              The Oz series
              The Maze Runner
              Explorer Academy
              The Firefly Code
              The Wild Robot

              Most of those, I believe, are for kids a little younger than he is, but they're also newer and therefore not old and boring.

              The Oz books are (if I remember) easy to read, short, and really engrossing. They're not condescending to kids, either.

              K Offline
              K Offline
              Klaus
              wrote on 16 Jun 2021, 20:03 last edited by
              #11

              @aqua-letifer said in Need book recommendations:

              You might want to look into Logicomix?

              You mean the philosophical Russel/Wittgenstein/.... thing? I got a copy in my book shelf. I'm sure he'd appreciate easy words like "epistemology" or "post-structuralism", let alone the subject matters such as logical paradoxes 😉

              1 Reply Last reply
              • J Jolly
                16 Jun 2021, 19:44

                @klaus said in Need book recommendations:

                @george-k said in Need book recommendations:

                Harry Potter?

                Way too complicated and too long.

                Not the first book or two in the series. Another series would be the Percy Jackson books. A bit dated, but the Heinlein juvenile books like Have Spacesuit, Will Travel or The Rolling Stones would be good.

                Newer stuff would be Al Capone Does My Shirts or maybe A Night Divided. The last one is a Berlin Wall story...

                K Offline
                K Offline
                Klaus
                wrote on 16 Jun 2021, 20:11 last edited by
                #12

                @jolly said in Need book recommendations:

                Not the first book or two in the series.

                I'll check out your suggestions, but I think you are overestimating the English capabilities of average 13yo Germans 🙂 They'll maybe know a thousand words. They cannot construct an English sentence with more than five words that does not contain multiple errors. Reading books in a foreign language is really really hard.

                A 1 Reply Last reply 16 Jun 2021, 21:04
                • C Offline
                  C Offline
                  Catseye3
                  wrote on 16 Jun 2021, 20:21 last edited by
                  #13

                  What might work is stories that are super adventurous, so much so that it's worth the effort to conquer the language in order to find out what happens next!

                  Unfortunately, I can't think of any easy texts right now. There's Captain Blood and Beau Geste, but they are certain to be too advanced.

                  Rafael Sabatini, who wrote Captain Blood, also wrote some short stories, if you can find them. I don't know if they'd be any easier, but at least they'd be short.

                  Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace. – Mike Ditka

                  1 Reply Last reply
                  • D Online
                    D Online
                    Doctor Phibes
                    wrote on 16 Jun 2021, 20:28 last edited by
                    #14

                    The Hobbit?

                    I was only joking

                    1 Reply Last reply
                    • C Offline
                      C Offline
                      Catseye3
                      wrote on 16 Jun 2021, 20:51 last edited by
                      #15

                      Oo! Oo! I just thought of something! The Hardy Boys!

                      "The Hardy Boys, brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, are fictional characters who appear in several mystery series for children and teens."

                      Go here: https://www.google.com/search?q="hardy+boys"&sxsrf=ALeKk02EN4Wa3RsCKc7Z7xK6S8SgBrsfgw%3A1623876662826&source=hp&ei=NmTKYOvkL4PD0PEP3_mlqAw&iflsig=AINFCbYAAAAAYMpyRmhcWhW-RwA4wLDDBPyWrxh81rBr&oq="hardy+boys"&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyBAgjECcyBAgAEEMyBAguEEMyBAgAEEMyBwgAEIcCEBQyBAgAEEMyAggAMgIILjICCAAyAgguOgsILhCxAxDHARCjAjoOCC4QsQMQgwEQxwEQrwE6BQgAEMkDOgUIABCSAzoICC4QsQMQgwE6CwguEMcBEKMCEJMCOgUILhCxAzoFCAAQsQM6BwguEIcCEBRQ1jVY7oMBYLiHAWgBcAB4AYAByAOIAcEOkgEIMS4xMS40LTGYAQCgAQGqAQdnd3Mtd2l6&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwjr15P9g53xAhWDITQIHd98CcUQ4dUDCAk&uact=5

                      Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace. – Mike Ditka

                      A B 2 Replies Last reply 16 Jun 2021, 21:02
                      • C Catseye3
                        16 Jun 2021, 20:51

                        Oo! Oo! I just thought of something! The Hardy Boys!

                        "The Hardy Boys, brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, are fictional characters who appear in several mystery series for children and teens."

                        Go here: https://www.google.com/search?q="hardy+boys"&sxsrf=ALeKk02EN4Wa3RsCKc7Z7xK6S8SgBrsfgw%3A1623876662826&source=hp&ei=NmTKYOvkL4PD0PEP3_mlqAw&iflsig=AINFCbYAAAAAYMpyRmhcWhW-RwA4wLDDBPyWrxh81rBr&oq="hardy+boys"&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyBAgjECcyBAgAEEMyBAguEEMyBAgAEEMyBwgAEIcCEBQyBAgAEEMyAggAMgIILjICCAAyAgguOgsILhCxAxDHARCjAjoOCC4QsQMQgwEQxwEQrwE6BQgAEMkDOgUIABCSAzoICC4QsQMQgwE6CwguEMcBEKMCEJMCOgUILhCxAzoFCAAQsQM6BwguEIcCEBRQ1jVY7oMBYLiHAWgBcAB4AYAByAOIAcEOkgEIMS4xMS40LTGYAQCgAQGqAQdnd3Mtd2l6&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwjr15P9g53xAhWDITQIHd98CcUQ4dUDCAk&uact=5

                        A Offline
                        A Offline
                        Aqua Letifer
                        wrote on 16 Jun 2021, 21:02 last edited by
                        #16

                        @catseye3 said in Need book recommendations:

                        Oo! Oo! I just thought of something! The Hardy Boys!

                        "The Hardy Boys, brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, are fictional characters who appear in several mystery series for children and teens."

                        Go here: https://www.google.com/search?q="hardy+boys"&sxsrf=ALeKk02EN4Wa3RsCKc7Z7xK6S8SgBrsfgw%3A1623876662826&source=hp&ei=NmTKYOvkL4PD0PEP3_mlqAw&iflsig=AINFCbYAAAAAYMpyRmhcWhW-RwA4wLDDBPyWrxh81rBr&oq="hardy+boys"&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyBAgjECcyBAgAEEMyBAguEEMyBAgAEEMyBwgAEIcCEBQyBAgAEEMyAggAMgIILjICCAAyAgguOgsILhCxAxDHARCjAjoOCC4QsQMQgwEQxwEQrwE6BQgAEMkDOgUIABCSAzoICC4QsQMQgwE6CwguEMcBEKMCEJMCOgUILhCxAzoFCAAQsQM6BwguEIcCEBRQ1jVY7oMBYLiHAWgBcAB4AYAByAOIAcEOkgEIMS4xMS40LTGYAQCgAQGqAQdnd3Mtd2l6&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwjr15P9g53xAhWDITQIHd98CcUQ4dUDCAk&uact=5

                        I absolutely hated those books. 😆
                        (And one of the authors did too, from what I read!)

                        Please love yourself.

                        1 Reply Last reply
                        • C Offline
                          C Offline
                          Catseye3
                          wrote on 16 Jun 2021, 21:03 last edited by
                          #17

                          Klaus, disregard what Aqua said above. He was drunk.

                          Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace. – Mike Ditka

                          1 Reply Last reply
                          • K Klaus
                            16 Jun 2021, 20:11

                            @jolly said in Need book recommendations:

                            Not the first book or two in the series.

                            I'll check out your suggestions, but I think you are overestimating the English capabilities of average 13yo Germans 🙂 They'll maybe know a thousand words. They cannot construct an English sentence with more than five words that does not contain multiple errors. Reading books in a foreign language is really really hard.

                            A Offline
                            A Offline
                            Axtremus
                            wrote on 16 Jun 2021, 21:04 last edited by
                            #18

                            @klaus said in Need book recommendations:

                            I'll check out your suggestions, but I think you are overestimating the English capabilities of average 13yo Germans 🙂 They'll maybe know a thousand words. They cannot construct an English sentence with more than five words that does not contain multiple errors. Reading books in a foreign language is really really hard.

                            I applaud you and your son for taking this on. This is the first time I see anyone asking for book recommendations specifically to facilitate the learning of a second language. 👍 👍

                            The unfortunate thing is if I take your "1000 word vocabulary" assessment literally and try to map it to a native anglophone's age or grade level, this site maps it to below age five. I cannot think of any book written for five year olds that would have content that is interesting to a 13 year old. You may have to resort to graphic novels. :man-shrugging:

                            K 1 Reply Last reply 16 Jun 2021, 21:15
                            • A Offline
                              A Offline
                              Aqua Letifer
                              wrote on 16 Jun 2021, 21:04 last edited by Aqua Letifer
                              #19

                              @catseye3 said in Need book recommendations:

                              Klaus, disregard what Aqua said above. He was drunk.

                              It's smugglers, okay? Smugglers.

                              It was always smugglers.

                              Please love yourself.

                              1 Reply Last reply
                              • A Axtremus
                                16 Jun 2021, 21:04

                                @klaus said in Need book recommendations:

                                I'll check out your suggestions, but I think you are overestimating the English capabilities of average 13yo Germans 🙂 They'll maybe know a thousand words. They cannot construct an English sentence with more than five words that does not contain multiple errors. Reading books in a foreign language is really really hard.

                                I applaud you and your son for taking this on. This is the first time I see anyone asking for book recommendations specifically to facilitate the learning of a second language. 👍 👍

                                The unfortunate thing is if I take your "1000 word vocabulary" assessment literally and try to map it to a native anglophone's age or grade level, this site maps it to below age five. I cannot think of any book written for five year olds that would have content that is interesting to a 13 year old. You may have to resort to graphic novels. :man-shrugging:

                                K Offline
                                K Offline
                                Klaus
                                wrote on 16 Jun 2021, 21:15 last edited by
                                #20

                                @axtremus said in Need book recommendations:

                                The unfortunate thing is if I take your "1000 word vocabulary" assessment literally and try to map it to a native anglophone's age or grade level, this site maps it to below age five.

                                I found this mapping from grades to CEFR language levels:

                                5th grade: A1
                                6th grade: A1+
                                7th grade: A2
                                8th grade: A2+
                                9th grade: B1
                                10th grade: B1+
                                12th grade: B2+

                                My son is 7th grade, so level A2. According to this website A2 vocabulary is around 1500 words.

                                I think it is in general a lot of work to speak a foreign language as good as a 5 year old native speaker.

                                J 1 Reply Last reply 16 Jun 2021, 21:24
                                • K Klaus
                                  16 Jun 2021, 21:15

                                  @axtremus said in Need book recommendations:

                                  The unfortunate thing is if I take your "1000 word vocabulary" assessment literally and try to map it to a native anglophone's age or grade level, this site maps it to below age five.

                                  I found this mapping from grades to CEFR language levels:

                                  5th grade: A1
                                  6th grade: A1+
                                  7th grade: A2
                                  8th grade: A2+
                                  9th grade: B1
                                  10th grade: B1+
                                  12th grade: B2+

                                  My son is 7th grade, so level A2. According to this website A2 vocabulary is around 1500 words.

                                  I think it is in general a lot of work to speak a foreign language as good as a 5 year old native speaker.

                                  J Offline
                                  J Offline
                                  Jolly
                                  wrote on 16 Jun 2021, 21:24 last edited by
                                  #21

                                  @klaus said in Need book recommendations:

                                  @axtremus said in Need book recommendations:

                                  The unfortunate thing is if I take your "1000 word vocabulary" assessment literally and try to map it to a native anglophone's age or grade level, this site maps it to below age five.

                                  I found this mapping from grades to CEFR language levels:

                                  5th grade: A1
                                  6th grade: A1+
                                  7th grade: A2
                                  8th grade: A2+
                                  9th grade: B1
                                  10th grade: B1+
                                  12th grade: B2+

                                  My son is 7th grade, so level A2. According to this website A2 vocabulary is around 1500 words.

                                  I think it is in general a lot of work to speak a foreign language as good as a 5 year old native speaker.

                                  I think all the stuff I gave you was American 6th grade level, if that can work...

                                  “Cry havoc and let slip the DOGE of war!”

                                  Those who cheered as J-6 American prisoners were locked in solitary for 18 months without trial, now suddenly fight tooth and nail for foreign terrorists’ "due process". — Buck Sexton

                                  1 Reply Last reply
                                  • jon-nycJ Online
                                    jon-nycJ Online
                                    jon-nyc
                                    wrote on 17 Jun 2021, 00:22 last edited by
                                    #22

                                    Percy Jackson is a good recommendation but could be beyond his English level. I can post a sample page or two.

                                    Only non-witches get due process.

                                    • Cotton Mather, Salem Massachusetts, 1692
                                    1 Reply Last reply
                                    • jon-nycJ Online
                                      jon-nycJ Online
                                      jon-nyc
                                      wrote on 17 Jun 2021, 00:23 last edited by
                                      #23

                                      I could just send my boy over there for the summer.

                                      Only non-witches get due process.

                                      • Cotton Mather, Salem Massachusetts, 1692
                                      G K 2 Replies Last reply 17 Jun 2021, 00:25
                                      • jon-nycJ jon-nyc
                                        17 Jun 2021, 00:23

                                        I could just send my boy over there for the summer.

                                        G Offline
                                        G Offline
                                        George K
                                        wrote on 17 Jun 2021, 00:25 last edited by
                                        #24

                                        @jon-nyc said in Need book recommendations:

                                        I could just send my boy over there for the summer.

                                        Partay at @jon-nyc 's house!

                                        "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08

                                        The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.

                                        1 Reply Last reply
                                        • G George K
                                          16 Jun 2021, 19:49

                                          Actually, what about some of the Tom Swift books?

                                          C Offline
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                                          Copper
                                          wrote on 17 Jun 2021, 01:44 last edited by Copper
                                          #25

                                          @george-k said in Need book recommendations:

                                          Actually, what about some of the Tom Swift books?

                                          Yes, obviously, no question

                                          This is number one on the list

                                          Maybe the Hardy Boys after this

                                          And Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer

                                          Edit

                                          And now I just noticed that there is a long line of new Tom Swift books written in the 80s, 90s and beyond. I am not familiar with these. The books from the 1950s are terrific.

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