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Reviewed by Emily-Jane Hills Orford for Readers' Favorite
Reading is an important means to understanding a language. English is particularly difficult to learn for non-English people. With this in mind, stories written at different levels of difficulty, but still maintaining a compelling plot, interesting settings and characters, and vocabulary tools to assist the learning process, provide a satisfying means to learn the English language.
Louanne Piccolo’s Mind the Gap is a set of three stories at the pre-intermediate level. The stories focus on three different scenarios, all dealing with the same main characters, Sophie, Emma and Max. The plot is interesting. The first story introduces Sophie as she accidentally picks up the wrong purse after enjoying a Guinness at a London pub. Seeking the rightful owner of the purse leads Sophie to her first new friend, Emma, as Sophie prepares to settle in London, a place where she knows no one. This alone provides a connection to the reader learning to read in a language that is not his/her first language, probably in a home he/she has recently moved to.
The plots in the following two stories continue with Sophie as she meets Max. The plot in each story addresses simple themes like honesty and ways to make that first meeting with someone new pleasant. These are interesting plots, realistic to the reader. Each story is also broken up with short glossaries of key words that were introduced in the previous passage, providing a comprehensive definition to assist in the learning process. This is an interesting way to introduce reading comprehension in English.
