The New Boy Is Lost: An ESL Picture-Novel

The New Boy Is Lost! is more than a dramatic story with 300 full-color pictures. Woven throughout this dramatic novel based on a real-life story are: essential first-year vocabulary; basic sentence structures; survival skills; problem-solving skills. Woven also into the novel are themes of courage, persistence, and multi-cultural cooperation. ESL students of all ages will identify with a 12-year-old newcomer who worries about making friends and learning English in an American school. The new boy, Taro, meets Ramon, Jae Han, Lee, and Susan, but no one speaks his language.After school, Taro takes the wrong bus home and gets lost. He knows only five words of English and that his new home is near a big white gas station. A rainstorm, and then the dark of night, add to his plight. Parents, students, and the police conduct a city-wide search for Taro, fearing the worst. Taro draws on his inner reserves of courage to get through the ordeal, and on his parents' counsel to keep himself safe. 70 pages.