抄録
This paper is a guide to 50 books of Page Turners Reading Library published by Heinle, Cengage Learning, which area 12-level graded reading series of original stories from level 1(200 headwords) to level 12 (2600 headwords). Considering that other ordinary graded readers are divided into 6 levels, the 12 levels seem too minute to be useful. The concept of Page Turners, however, is quite successful in forcing the reader to turn pages with growing interest. Every Page Turners book is enjoyable just because it compels the reader to want to know what is going on, or what will happen next, which sometimes turns out to be not so interesting after all, though. In addition to how to read English, the reader can learn how to write fiction,especially, various techniques of arousing the reader’s curiosity and keeping his/her attention.
The books from level 1 to level 4, set in a fictional Brenton College in the Unites States, are seemingly created as a companion series to Foundations Reading Library in which Bayview High School students' daily lives and extraordinary adventures are vividly described. Since the new heroes and heroines are older than the former counterparts, the stories are much more serious and far more complicated with adult conflicts. As a result, the protagonists can no longer stay around school; naturally the books from level 5 on to the end have nothing to do with Brenton College. Now the setting limitation is gone, stories are written as freely as possible. Many of these are the products of Cambridge English Readers authors like Sue Leather, Richard MacAndrew, Margaret Johnson, and Antoinette Moses. Page Turners makes good use of the forerunner's know-how, effectively adding a Macmillan English Readers-like illustrated introduction of characters before the text. Sue Leather and Julian Thomlinson's collaborated work Heart of a Fighter and Irene Barrall's unique, heartwarming story The Long Road to Lucca are highly recommended as excellent examples of this series.
