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8 Beginner English Book Recommendations [Advanced English Lesson] - YouTube
Channel: Speak English With Vanessa
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Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.
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Today, we're gonna talk about books.
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Let's get started.
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Today, I'm gonna quickly talk about eight
books that are great if you've never read
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a book in English before.
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All of these books use simple language, simple
vocabulary, but the stories are engaging and
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interesting, and they move quickly, so you
don't have to read pages and pages of descriptions
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of the scenery or of some deep character.
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Well, in these books, they are generally for
upper elementary school kids, so nine-year-old,
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10-year-old, 11, 12, 13-year-old.
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This age group usually reads interesting books,
but books that use relatively simple language.
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So I recommend, if you've never read a book
before in English, use one of these books.
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Get one of these books off of Amazon or other
places that you can get books in English and
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try it.
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Take some time.
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Take a couple weeks to try to read one of
these.
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Because there's eight books, there's a lot
of material, so I'm gonna try to go quickly
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to help you really get an idea for each of
these and choose the right book for you.
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Let's start with the first one.
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The first book is Roald Dahl's James and the
Giant Peach.
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This book is about a little boy who tries
to escape from his terrible aunts, who he's
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living with, and he goes inside an amazing
giant peach, and has a lot of adventures as
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he's traveling from London to the U.S.
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I think that this book is pretty well-known.
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The story is well-known.
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Maybe you've seen the movie, but take some
time to read the book.
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It's not so long.
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There's some pictures, and I'm gonna read
you the first couple sentences so that you
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can have an idea about the language that's
used.
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Are you ready?
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"Until he was four years old, James Henry
Trotter had had a happy life.
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He lived peacefully with his mother and father
in a beautiful house, beside the sea.
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There were always plenty of other children
for him to play with, and there was a sandy
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beach for him to run about on and the ocean
to paddle in.
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It was the perfect life for a small boy.
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Then, one day, James' mother and father went
to London to do some shopping and there, a
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terrible thing happened."
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I'm not gonna tell you what happened.
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You'll have to read the book to find out.
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This is our first book and the most simple.
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We're gonna start with the most simple and
then go up to a little more challenging, but
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all of these really, you could read if you've
never read a book in English before.
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Let's go to the second one.
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The second book is a little more serious.
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It is Lois Lowry's Number the Stars.
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This book is about a little girl in Denmark,
who decides to hide and try to save her Jewish
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friend during World War II.
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So this book, as you can imagine, is not as
funny as the first book, but it also has an
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interesting storyline.
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I'm gonna read you the first couple sentences,
so that you can get an idea for the language.
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"Why are you running?
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'I'll race you to the corner, Ellen,' Annemarie
adjusted her thick leather pack on her back,
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so that her school books balanced evenly.
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'Ready?'
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She looked at her best friend.
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Ellen made a face.
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'No,' she said, laughing.
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'You know I can't beat you.
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My legs aren't as long.
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Can't we just walk, like civilized people?'
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She was a stocky 10-year-old, unlike lanky
Annemarie."
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So, as you can tell from the first few sentences
of this book, there are probably a few words
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that might be new to you, such as stocky,
lanky.
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Well, these words are important for the story,
but they're not essential.
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So, as you're reading, you can understand
the general idea, and then if you want to
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underline those new words and look them up
immediately or look them up later, you can
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get a better idea for these specific words,
but they're not gonna stop you from understanding
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the general story.
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I think, for me, when I read my first book
in French, when I finished the book, I felt
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so accomplished.
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I felt like I had done something amazing,
even though the book wasn't that long, it
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was maybe something like this, I felt amazing
because I finished the book and I generally
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understood the story.
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So, if you can generally understand the story
and gain that confidence that, "Yes, I can
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do it.
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I can read a book in English," then you can
go back and you can learn the specific words,
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or you could move on to some of the other
books that I'm gonna recommend.
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The third book that I'm gonna recommend is
E.B.
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White's Charlotte's Web.
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This book is a classic children's story, and
it's got a kind of crazy story, when you think
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about it.
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It's the story of a pig, who is gonna be killed
to be eaten, and a spider, who decides to
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save the pig's life.
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So, it's about animals, but it's also featuring
a little girl, which is a really touching,
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endearing story.
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I'm gonna read a couple sentences to you from
the beginning of this book.
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"Chapter One: Before breakfast.
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'Where's Papa going with that ax?', said Fern
to her mother, as they were setting the table
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for breakfast.
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'Out to the hog house,' replied Mrs. Arable.
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'Some pigs were born last night.'
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'I don't see why he needs an ax,' continued
Fern, who was only eight.
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'Well,' said her mother, 'One of the pigs
is a runt.
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It's very small and weak, and it will never
amount to anything, so your father has decided
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to do away with it.'
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'Do away with it?', shrieked Fern.
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'You mean, kill it just because it's smaller
than the others?'"
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Well, so far, you can see because this book
is for maybe 10-year-olds, I think I read
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this book when I was fourth or fifth grade,
they often explain some of the vocabulary
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words.
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So, here in the book, the mother says, "One
of the pigs was a runt," R-U-N-T.
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Maybe this is a new word for you, and I think
the author is explaining the word because
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it might be a new word for some of the original
native English speaker readers of this book
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as well.
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And she says, "It's a runt.
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It's small and weak," so you're learning vocabulary
through the people in this book.
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And then when the mother says, "Your father
decided to do away with it."
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This word, "do away with," maybe some people
who are reading this book understand what
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it means, but maybe they don't.
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So here, Fern, Fern is the girl, Fern says,
"Do away with?
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You mean kill."
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So here, you can understand that the expression
"do away with", in this situation, means kill,
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so you're learning vocabulary through the
characters.
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Excellent.
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An amazing story.
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Let's go to the next book.
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The next book is Richard Atwater's Mr. Popper's
Penguins.
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Unfortunately, I don't have a physical copy
of this book, but I'm still gonna explain
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it and read to you a couple sentences that
are digital, on my computer.
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So, this book, Mr. Popper's Penguins, is a
delightful, kind of silly story about a man,
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who has a lot of penguins.
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Maybe you've seen the movie, I think it's
with Jim Carrey.
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Read the book, don't watch the movie first.
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Read the book and learn something silly.
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The vocabulary and sentences are really simple
in this book, so I hope it will help to build
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your confidence and get you interested in
reading books in English.
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I'm gonna read to you the first couple sentences.
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"Chapter One: Stillwater.
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It was an afternoon in late September, in
the pleasant little city of Stillwater.
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Mr. Popper, the house painter, was going home
from work.
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He was carrying his buckets, his ladders,
and his boards so that he had a rather hard
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time moving along.
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He was spattered here and there with paint
and calcimine, and there were bits of wallpaper
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clinging to his hair and whiskers, for he
was a rather untidy man."
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Here, as before, we have a couple words that
might be new to you, but in general, you can
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imagine Mr. Popper.
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He's carrying ladders and buckets, and he
has wallpaper stuck to him.
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He has paint everywhere.
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He is an untidy man.
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So, you could learn this word, untidy, by
the descriptions, and it continues going where
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he meets a bunch of penguins and lots of crazy
things happen.
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It's an excellent book with pretty simple
sentences and simple vocabulary.
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A good place to start.
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Let's talk about the next book.
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The next book is Holes, by Louis Sachar, I
think that's how you say it.
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Well, this book is about a boy who has to
go to a detention center and dig holes.
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It's a pretty well-known story as well, and
that's one of the reasons why it'll be easy
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to follow, if you already know the story,
but also the thing that I like about this
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book is that the chapters are really short.
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So here, we have Chapter One, and already,
it's Chapter Two, so you're not waiting for
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other things to happen.
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It goes really fast.
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Let me read you the first couple sentences.
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"There is no lake at Camp Green Lake.
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There was once a very large lake here, the
largest lake in Texas.
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That was over a hundred years ago.
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Now, it's just a dry, flat wasteland.
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There used to be a town of Green Lake as well.
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The town shriveled and dried up, along with
the lake, and the people who lived there."
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So, in this short excerpt, there were probably
a couple new words, such as wasteland, shriveled,
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but hopefully from the context, you can get
an idea.
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Wasteland, dry, flat waste land.
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You can get the image that it's a dried lake
with nothing.
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The soil isn't good, there's no trees, it's
not beautiful.
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It's waste.
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Kind of like garbage.
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So, hopefully this book, Holes, would be a
good introduction to your English reading
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journey.
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Let's go to the next one.
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The next book is called My Side of the Mountain
by Jean Craighead George.
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This book also, I don't have a physical copy
of, but it's on the computer.
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So, I want to tell you a little bit about
it.
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This book is one of my favorite books for
young people, and it's about a little boy,
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who decides to go live in the woods, and he
has to find food, he has to find shelter,
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and I think this book has inspired a lot of
people to explore nature and just do something
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adventurous.
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I know, for me when I was younger, it inspired
me.
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When I taught English to Americans in the
U.S., we read this book in seventh grade,
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so they were 13 years old, and they loved
this book because it was really inspirational
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about going and trying new things.
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So, let me read you a couple sentences, and
hopefully you'll get an idea for the language.
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"Chapter One: In which I hole up in a snow
storm.
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I'm on my mountain, in a tree home, that people
have passed without ever knowing that I am
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here.
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The house is a hemlock tree, six feet in diameter,
and must be as old as the mountain itself.
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I came upon it last summer and dug and burned
it out until I made a snug cave in the tree,
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that I now call home."
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Here, he's describing his tree home, so you
get this image of someone who's in the middle
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of the woods, alone, but you get a feeling
of satisfaction, of pride.
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"I made this cave, this home, in a tree."
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I really recommend this book if you like nature
and if you like adventure, check this one
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out.
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Let's go to the next book.
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The next book is called Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen.
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This is a book that, I think, is required
reading in the U.S. for nine, 10, 11-year-olds,
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because it's also full of adventure, like
the previous book.
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It's about a little boy, who is in a plane
crash, and he has to survive in the Canadian
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wilderness with only a hatchet.
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A hatchet is this thing here.
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It's kind of like an ax, a small ax, and he
has to survive.
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So, let me read you a couple sentences, and
you can get a feeling for the language.
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"Brian Robeson stared out the window of the
small plane at the endless green northern
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wilderness below.
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It was a small plane, a Cessna 406, a bush
plane, and the engine was so loud, so roaring
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and consuming and loud, that it ruined any
chance for conversation.
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Not that he had much to say.
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He was 13 and the only passenger on the plane
was a pilot named, what was it, Jim or Jake
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or something, who was in his mid forties and
who had been silent, as he worked to prepare
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for takeoff."
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Here, we have a picture of a boy, looking
over the beautiful Canadian wilderness, in
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a plane, alone, with someone who he doesn't
really know.
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What could happen?
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I recommend it.
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Let's go to the last book.
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The last book is Scott O'Dell's book, Island
of the Blue Dolphins.
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This book is the most challenging out of all
of these recommendations, but it's still a
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book that's usually read by 12 or 13-year-olds
in the U.S., and this book is based off of
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a true story.
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It's absolutely incredible because, in the
true story, there was a woman, who was living
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on an island off the coast of California for
20 years by herself.
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No one else was on the island, and after 20
years, someone found her and she was happy,
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she was healthy, and it's the story about
what was her life like.
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We don't know because, actually when they
found her in real-life, no one could understand
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her language.
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They didn't even know what her language was.
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So, no one will ever really know what this
woman did while she was living on the island
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by herself for 20 years, but Scott O'Dell
decided that this is a beautiful story and
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he wanted to create it.
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He wanted to imagine what this woman's life
was like by herself.
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So, I'm gonna read you a couple sentences,
so that you can get an idea for the language.
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"I remember the day the Aleut ship came to
our island.
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At first, it seemed like a small shell afloat
on the sea.
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Then, it grew larger, and was a gull with
folded wings.
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At last in the rising sun, it became what
it really was, a red ship with two red sails.
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My brother and I had gone to the head of a
canyon that winds down to a little harbor,
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which is called Coral Cove.
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We had gone to gather roots that grow there
in the spring."
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Here, she's explaining some of her story before
some becomes alone on the island.
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Well, I recommend it if you're interested
in imagining what could have happened in history,
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because we have no idea, but it's a great
book, quite interesting, and it's simple enough.
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It's a little challenging, but it's simple
enough to start your English reading journey.
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I hope that at least one of these books sounds
interesting to you so that you can get started
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reading in English.
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I have a video where I talk about some reading
techniques, to help you really learn as you're
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reading, and also enjoy it.
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I made a video a while ago about some more
challenging books, so if these books seem
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too simple for you, make sure to check out
that video, and let me know in the comments.
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What are some other recommendations you have
for some kind of simple book, in English,
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that's a good book to get started with?
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Thanks so much for learning with me, and I'll
see you the next time.
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Bye.
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The next step is to download my free e-book,
Five Steps to Becoming a Confident English
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Speaker.
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I want to help you master English and speak
fluently.
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Feel free to subscribe, so that you don't
miss new English lessons.
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Thanks so much for learning with me.
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Bye.
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