The “Good Reads” Program

The “Good Reads” Program:
One of the biggest challenges (difficulties) for adults who want to improve their reading in another language is finding books at a low level, but that are still interesting. Reading children and teen books that are at the right level, but that are about animals, school, or teenage problems, might not hold their interest (keep their attention).
I recently came across (saw without looking for it) a relatively (fairly) new effort to provide adults with the right reading material. The program is called Good Reads and it is a program by a Canadian non-profit (not intended to make money) organization called ABC Life Literacy Canada. The purpose of the program is to help adults become more literate (able to read and write). It’s not targeted (made especially for) people learning English, but the books are at lower levels and are written about adult themes (subjects; topics) – exactly what English learners need.
In this program, Canadian authors who write popular adult novels are asked to write short stories or short novels at a lower language level.  According to their website, all of the stories/novels meet these criteria (requirements):

• Short: Less than 100 pages.
• Enjoyable: Stories you can’t put down.
• Easy reading: Written in clear language.
• For adult learners: For people improving their reading skills.
• Canadian: By Canada’s best authors.

We don’t typically talk about programs outside of the U.S. in our podcast or blog.  However, I’m making an exception here, because this may be useful to our listeners. While there are some differences between Canadian and American English, the differences are very small, but of course not so small that Americans forgo (pass without doing something) making fun of Canadians, and vice versa (the other way around)!  But, truth be told (being honest), there really are very few and very minor differences.
I came across this program because I was looking for new books by one of my favorite modern mystery authors: Louise Penny. It turns out that Louise Penny is one of the authors who has contributed (added something) to this program.  Her story is called The Hangman and I read it over the weekend. Louise Penny is an excellent writer and The Hangman is an interesting story.  It is certainly written more simply than her other novels, though not at as low a level as some stories written specifically for English learners, such as Deadly Letters.  However, I enjoyed it and recommend it; it is only about 55 pages long.  You may want to look at the other books in this program as well.  I’m not familiar with the other authors who have written for Good Reads, but if they are of Louise Penny’s caliber (level of ability), they may be worth checking out (looking at). It looks like the Good Reads books can be purchased directly from their website, with a few of them also sold through Amazon as electronic books. (Sometimes, Amazon restricts (limits) which countries can buy certain books, but I hope there isn’t a problem where you live.)
If you read any of these Good Reads books, let us know what you think and whether you would recommend them to other English learners.
~ Lucy