The Product
Publisher: Maven of Memory Publishing
Cost: $12.95 each or the set for $51.80. Check the site the was on sale for $38.85
Ages: Recommended for High School
College Prep Genius makes the ‘Master the SATs’ DVD course. They publish a novella series called Vocab Cafe. The books are designed to teach vocabulary words frequently on the SAT exam. Each book is designed with a 3-step approach of increasing vocabulary: definition, repetition, and reinforcement. The words are highlighted in the text, and the definition is found at the bottom of the page. Each book teaches 300 SAT words.
The four books in the series are:
*The Summer of Saint Nick
*I.M. for Murder
*Operation High School
*Planet Exile
It is important to note this disclaimer from the publisher:
**A WORD ABOUT CONTENT – These books were written with an intended audience of high school teenagers, although many parents find them appropriate for their middle school or younger students. As a family-based company, our goal is to make a quality product that can be enjoyed by everyone. Thus, these stories contain no magic, sorcery, swear words, illicit situations, nor do they encourage negative behaviors. However, we recommend that parents should read every book that they give their children (not just ours) to make sure the messages coincide with their beliefs and standards. The VocabCafé Book Series does contain boy-girl relationships (non-sexual), mild violence, and mature thematic elements.
My Thoughts
I love the idea behind the books. I think teaching vocabulary through a book is a brilliant and effective idea. Sadly, I.M. for Murder had many distracting typos as did a few of the other books. On one or two occasions the vocabulary word was strained to make sense in the sentence. I.M. for Murder and Summer of Saint Nick were entertaining. I did not read the other two, however, my daughter read all four. It is a definite plus to have books available with no magic, sorcery, swear words, and illicit situations. The books do contain some mature themes and as a parent you will have to determine the appropriateness of the books for yourself. I am never fond of murder being used for entertainment purposes; however, I don’t find it immoral to read a murder mystery. The books did not contain any boy/girl content that would be considered inappropriate. However, you may want to determine if that theme is something you are comfortable with. I chose to allow my 8th grader to read the books due to her reading classics with a favorite being Shakespeare which is no stranger to mild violence and relationship themes.
My Middle School Child’s Thoughts
My daughter is 13 years old yet fairly well read. She thought I.M. for Murder and Summer of Saint Nick were slow but entertaining enough to keep her interest until the end. She did not like Planet Exile. She thought the book was elementary and short. She read that one in a day. She was unimpressed with Operation High School. However, she enjoyed learning vocabulary in this manner. She did say that most of the vocabulary was easy to learn most likely due to the format and not intimidating or as boring as workbooks. My daughter was not bothered by the typos or misuse of a few words as her perspective was the books were written around vocabulary words and not written as literature. Interesting perspective. She said they did the best they could with those words. So perhaps if your child learns the words which is the goal then the flaws may not be such an issue?? I’m not convinced; I think the typos need to be cleaned up.
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