Luck at the Library!

Today I went to Penrith to start my library visits in the place where Suzanne in The Boy with Two Heads lives and almost dies. It turns out that the county leader of Young People's Services is based there, so we had a long chat about the kind of library event she might be able to slot The Boy into. 


And during that chat I discovered that the Cambridge English Reader (CER) series has been installed in some of the libraries in Cumbria! The editors and authors of CERs have been trying to persuade the powers that be that these short but pithy novels would be good for UK readers (as well as for EFL students all over the world) for years.

Some of the 90 or so CER titles in 7 levels of language

In Penrith, they are in the section that helps people with literacy, whether they are native English speakers or people for whom English is a second or foreign language (EFL).  I found Nelson's Dream among them!! And they told me that Dragons' Eggs was out on loan (even more exclamation marks!). On the same shelves were a plethora of Quick Reads, too.


I was thrilled that in fact the whole series of CER titles are now available from a library. I had a short chat with two librarians about them and dashed home to write a mail to the central office of Cumbria's libraries to find out how this came about and thank them.