Easy Readers: The Princess Diaries and Three Tomorrows
reviewed by Neil McBeath, Saudi Arabia
Neil McBeath served as a uniformed educational officer in the Royal Air Force of Oman from 1981 to 2005. During that time he gained two Masters degrees and the Omani Distinguished Service Medal. He refused to renew contract in 2005 and now works for BAE Systems in Saudi Arabia.
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Three Tomorrows
The Princess Diaries 3
References
Frank Brennan 2006
Cambridge University Press
ISBN 0-521-69377-2
This is a graded reader at the Beginner/Elementary level, corresponding to Level A1 of the Council of Europe's Common European Framework. The book consists of three science fiction short stories, set five years, 100 years and 1500 years in the future. All the stories have strong female protagonists, an unusual feature in the Science Fiction genre, and a very welcome development.
Of the three stories – Spam; A Flower for Lupus; Zina's last Dream – Spam is probably the weakest. Brennan makes it clear that the teenage daughter, Louise, is the most computer literate member of her household, but gives no hint that she possesses the truly remarkable skill that would be required if the denouement were to be credible.
A Flower for Lupus, by contrast, is a tour do force. I found it simultaneously chilling and heart breaking. Zina's Last Dream has echoes of Steven Spielberg's film AI (Artificial Intelligence) but these come from the illustrations as much as the text.
I would recommend this book. It could be read, with profit, by teenage, young adult and adult learners. Spam addresses a concern relevant to anyone who has ever used e-mail, and the other stories are concerned with the timeless themes of loss and memory. All three stories are quite capable of stimulating discussion and reflection about hopes and fears for the future.
Meg Cabot (Retold by Anne Collins) 2006
Oxford Macmillan Publishers Pp. 87
ISBN 978-1-4050-8717-9
Thios book comes from Macmillan's new Pre-Intermediate level of graded readers, and it comes with two audio CD's. Whether these are actually necessary at this level is a matter of taste. The book is not intellectually demanding; it is a retelling of Cabot's (2001) The Princess Diaries; Third Time Lucky.
The Princess Diaries have had remarkable success in America, and have led to two charming, albeit lightweight, film comedies. In the first Princess Mia survives the usual traumas of American High School life, and in the second she gets her man and becomes Queen.
Strangely, on the cover of this book, Macmillan have opted for a cartoon rather than a still from one of the films, and this may lessen both the book's immediate impact and appeal. I would suggest, moreover, that even while this book comes from the genre usually dismissed as "chick lit", a European readership is likely to see through its false premise.
"Mom and dad weren't married when I was born. My mom didn't want to marry my dad so she became a single mother"(pp. 7-8). Under these circumstances, how can Mia be either a Princess or the heir to the throne of Genovia? Charles II's crown could not pass to any of his brood of illegitimate children, but passed to his brother James. William IV, a proud father many times over, left the throne to his nearest legitimate relative, his niece Victoria. European students understand how the legitimacy rule works in monarchies. It has prevented bloodshed on a number of occasions.
That having been said, this book works. Mia's faux naïf diary allows the reader to get close to her character. One of the ironies of graded readers is that they are so circumscribed in terms of grammar and lexis that often stories featuring characters with linguistic handicaps work best. Penguin Readers proved this with Rain Man, About a Boy and Forrest Gump; Raymond and Marcus were holy innocents, and Forrest Gump was just an idiot. None of them could understand, or use, irony or any type of figurative language.
Plain language suited all these characters, and plain language is all that Mia can produce. She writes at the level of a young teenager, and the reader accepts this limitation. We KNOW that the story will end happily. This isn't Emily Bronte. It's a fun read, and it is an easy page turner.
Two final points. The glossary (pp. 75-78) is a good idea, but the comprehension xercises (pp. 72-74) and the assorted vocabulary, matching and rewriting exercises are not. REAL books do not have these appendages, so why do we have them in graded readers?
Cabot, Meg. 2001. The Princess Diaries; Third Time Lucky. New York, HarperCollins
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