Harriet Holmes and the Portrait

2023 Awards - Extensive Reading Foundation

Jane Cadwallader
Illustrated by Gustavo Mazali.

Jurors’ comment: Chutipa: Attractive book design with good quality production. Interesting characters of young kids trying to solve the case. Illustration is beautiful and coordinates with the story very well to help improve comprehension.
Online voter’s comments:
That book has interesting story because that can teaches us about critical thinking in problem on our life. So, it can makes us good at thinking. This book use simple words that I can understand. The story has good plot so this book is very exciting. This book also has clear pictures that can make me understand the story.

Martha and the Tiger Party

2022 Awards - Extensive Reading Foundation

Jane Cadwallader
Illustrated by Gustavo Mazali.

Jurors’ comment: Martha and the Tiger Party does a great job of combining vocabulary young learners usually learn in the ELT classroom, creating a story young learners can read on their own, and giving us a charming, humorous story the teach the values of friendship, helping others, and health. While the story is simple, it exposes the children to a variety of grammar tenses and a proper conflict, climax, and resolution.
Online voter’s comment: An interesting story for the learners about friendship and helping. They were involved in the story and felt close to the characters who helped each other in difficult times.

Our Water. Our World

2022 Awards - Extensive Reading Foundation

Jane Cadwallader
Illustrated by Gustavo Mazali.

Jurors’ comment: Readers at this level may need some orientation on the maze (make your own adventure) story format and some background as to how this story fits into the overall story arc of the series. With these in mind, younger readers should have an enjoyable experience making their way through the adventure, supported by beautiful illustrations, “Guess what happens next” questions and a page-by-page glossary.
Online voter’s comment: This book is great as it can be used for science topics to make CLIL lessons and also to discover different countries and cultures. The pictures are beautiful and the structure with comics is attracting. It highlights sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Little Women

2022 Awards - Extensive Reading Foundation

Louisa May Alcott. retold by Silvana Sardi.

Jurors’ comment:The book plot is heartwarming with love and care amongst family members, care and attention between neighbours and the poor. Illustrations are nice and sophisticated. Margin notes really offer more reference for the readers to comprehend what is going on or why. “Think’ boxes can be used in classrooms for discussions or to provoke further thinking by the readers. The story walks the reader from normal daily life setting within a family, then to extending social interactions, hardship and climax, and back to relief and happiness – which really wins hearts.

Real lives Serie

ELTons - 2020 Award

Judges' Commendation for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

REAL LIVES Series ELI Publishing and partners is a winner of a special commendation for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the 18th British Council ELTons Awards, the only international awards for innovation in English language teaching.

Juanita and her alpaca

2019 Awards - Extensive Reading Foundation

Judge’s comment: This is a wonderful story which introduces Peru, the country and its culture in a very interesting way. Not only is the language easy to understand, but also the beautiful photographs wonderfully illustrate Juanita’s daily life in the mountains of Peru. The idea of combining the real information and an illustrated Peruvian legend about the vicuna is brilliant. Readers can enjoy the story and, at the same time, learn factual information. Since this reader also includes an audio CD, children can enjoy it on their own, even if they are not yet fluent readers. This reader would really hold the children’s interest and could easily be used for storytelling, a CLIL lesson, or as part of an extensive reading library.

 PB3 and the Fish

2019 Awards - Extensive Reading Foundation

Judge’s comment: This is a story about robots, aliens, animals and children which makes it interesting for a broad group of learners. It teaches the targeted group to think about the consequences of their actions beforehand. This book is written in a good style and supported with detailed illustrations. The presentation of the story is very creative. Activities are engaging especially the role-play. Teachers and students can think of so many ways to present the story in a fun and interesting approach.

Granny Fixit and the Viking Children

2018 Awards - Extensive Reading Foundation

Judge’s comment: The story is simple and relatable. It is very engaging based on everyday life situations. Every child loves his granny so the idea to have granny as the main character is brilliant. This book incorporates values of open-mindedness, resourcefulness and friendship. The part when the kids save the dolphin is very touching. It will surely touch the heart of the young readers. Showing kindness to animals is a timely value that our young learners must possess. This kind of book is very useful for kids to learn not only the language but also values. Post reading activities use critical thinking. The repetitive lyrics of the song are useful for the retention of the language. Illustrations support the content.

The Boy with the Red Balloon

2018 Awards - Extensive Reading Foundation

Judge’s comment: This is the story of Lizzie, a girl who has to spend the summer away from her friends, and is very unhappy about it until she meets the boy with the red balloon. Who is this lovely boy that make Lizzie forget phubbing* and the lack of wi-fi connection? The illustrations mix pictures and drawings, making faces look real and more relatable
* phubbing = slang for ignoring people to pay attention to one’s phone, from phone + snubbing

Little Red Riding Hood

2018 Awards - Extensive Reading Foundation

Judge’s comment: This classic story is very entertaining. The world is hardly in need of another retelling of story. Still, the retelling is clear, and the book does a fair job of integrating a variety of engaging activities into the text. A lot of vocabulary are introduced with illustrations for familiarity. The activities are challenging, differentiated, and uses critical thinking. This book somehow exposes the young learners to different reading skills. Incorporating songs is also an effective approach to learn new vocabulary and structures

Nyangoma’s Story – A Child’s Life in Uganda

2018 Awards - Extensive Reading Foundation

Judge’s comment: This reader combines non-fiction and fictional stylist elements to tell the everyday true story of a girl from Uganda called Nyangoma. Through photographs and illustrations, which are combined with simple but evocative text, we learn about her daily life including food, school, friends and toys. She even encounters a snake on her journey to school! Children can also compare the story to their own everyday lives and culture in their country. The book was created in association with Adelante Africa, an NGO which supports schools and communities in Uganda. In short, this fun hybrid non-fiction reader is both engaging and meaningful. Kids, as well as the parents or teachers they read it with, will all love it!

Cinderella

2018 Awards - Extensive Reading Foundation

Judge’s comment: Cinderella is a tale that has been retold many times, but it does not lose it magic. There are no surprising ‘moments’ however there are special touches such as the musical spell ‘Wishes and dreams…’. The layout and production of the text is also of a high quality, so a learner won’t feel overwhelmed by the amount of text on the page. The illustrations are a plus and compliment the text. The story is clear, easy to understand, and pitched at the correct level for beginner ELL’s.

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse

2018 Awards - Extensive Reading Foundation

Judge’s comment: Aesop’s fables are classics and this retelling of the tale is rich and clearly carries across the moral of the original tale. The language used for this tale is clear and easy to follow. The beautiful illustrations richly compliment the story. The book is well laid out with the use of margins and the spacing of the text.

The Mill on the Floss

2018 Awards - Extensive Reading Foundation

Judge’s comment: A poetic and impressive retelling of an old classic. A well written and easy to follow text with a bounty of social, cultural and temporal information that L2 readers would find informative and fairly entertaining. The activities seem well proportioned to the overall text, and offer the learner some valuable opportunity to think deeply about the text as well as beyond the text itself. The color illustrations are simple, yet reasonably appealing for a 21st-century reader.

Egghead

2017 Awards - Extensive Reading Foundation

Judge’s comment: A touching and wonderful true story about friendship, bullying, school and family. Reading this book is like reading a diary, with beautiful pictures and small drawings.

On-line voter’s comment: The very good thing about the book is that it is about a very relevant theme, bullying and surviving it. Students involved in discussions eagerly while trying this in class as many could identify with many of the situations themselves. Going beyond language, it is very motivational for learners who are insecure in many ways.

Granny Fixit and the Monkey

2017 Awards - Extensive Reading Foundation

Judges’ comment: The book has themes that tend to be popular with children around the world – mischievous monkeys and an outing with a grandparent. The story embraces a kind of silliness that many very young learners will identify with. The writing is easy to read because of rhythmic repetition and correct word choice for the level. The illustrations are fun, and detailed enough to help the reader guess unknown words from the picture context.

The Canterbury Tales

2017 Awards - Extensive Reading Foundation

Judges’ comment: The Canterbury Tales is a well-written book with effective illustrations where the colorful characters stand out from the black and white backdrop. The limited new vocabulary makes this book a comfortable read for beginners who have moved into chapter books. This classic tale is written in a simple grammatical format that flows smoothly. Also, the person’s name is used more often than the pronoun, which is helpful in understanding the story. The book itself tends to be a little long but it is divided up into different stories. The length should not be a problem for the higher level beginners.

Anne of Green Gables 

2017 Awards - Extensive Reading Foundation

Judge’s comment: This excellent book simply but engagingly retells the story of Anne and her relationships with Marilla, Matthew and the community and environment around her. Readers will get a good sense of the charm and scope of the original. The cute illustrations are aimed at younger readers, but older readers will equally enjoy the story and look forward to reading the original.

On-line voter’s comment: Anne’s feelings often go up and down. She makes many mistakes or does surprising things, so the story develops one thing after another. It is interesting for me. I can see Anne’s kindness and childlike character. I also can see the process of building good relationships between Anne and many other people. This story makes my mind warm. This is a good story.

The Canterville Ghost

Extensive Reading Foundation Award

By Oscar Wilde.
Retold by Jane Cadwallader. 
Illustrated by Gustavo Mazali.

Judges’ comment: Beautifully illustrated, fast-moving story of the Otis family and Sir Simon, the ghost. Do they just see past each other?

White Fang 

Extensive Reading Foundation Award

Judges’ comment: Well-managed retelling of a classic story of love, respect, and loyalty between people and animals. We promise you’ll keep turning the pages quickly. 

Gulliver’s Travels

Extensive Reading Foundation Award

By Jonathan Swift.
Retold by Janet Borsbey and Ruth Swan.
Illustrated by Simone Massoni. 

Judges’ comment: This is an excellent re-telling of the classic story, with good clarity and language control. Including several of Gulliver’s journeys, it goes much farther than some other “simple” versions in familiarizing readers with the scope of this important cultural point of reference, and with the thrust of Swift’s social commentary.

The Great Gatsby

Extensive Reading Foundation Award

By Francis Scott Fitzgerald
Adaptation and activities by
Richard J. Larkhman.
Illustrated by Rodolfo Brocchini.

Judges’ comment: Judges’ comment: Richard Larkham should be very proud of his excellent adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece. Gatsby, the dreamer, lives in a magnificent house and can buy anything he wants — except for one thing…

Uncle Jack and the Meerkats

Extensive Reading Foundation Award

By Jane Cadwallader
Illustrated by Gustavo Mazali.

Judges’ comment: This story is good for young learners because it is a nice mixture of adventure, fantasy and reality, with an animal conservation angle. It also has a cool family theme and intelligent child characters. Well-written, nice design and fun to read.