“Great Influences from Atama-ii Books” Akinori Ushijima with Yukiho Hashimoto, Naho Horiguchi, Nao Seike

“Great Influences

from Atama-ii Books”

Akinori Ushijima

Yukiho Hashimoto

Naho Horiguchi

Nao Seike

What is Atama-ii Books?

Atama-ii books is a series of beginner level easy-English graded readers for all ages 11 and up. There are 10 books in this series, and each book follows the same rules. The reader becomes the chief character of the story. As we read the story, we come across the choices that can change the ending of the story. Depending on our choice, we can reach completely different endings. Each book in this series has 3 branch points and 8 conclusions. Also these have original full-color illustrations to help understanding.

We read “Journey to Mars”, ”Backstage Pass”, “THE OOZE” and ”THE NORTH FENCE" and talked about the features of this series.

Summary of each story we read

“Backstage Pass”

When you encounter your most favorite musician, what do you do?

Scream, cry, hug...or freeze?

If you get a chance to see the musician, what do you do?

You might act boldly; nevertheless, it is very risky.

In this story, the main characters go to their favorite band's concert and they get a chance to meet the members of the band. The main characters’ acts to meet them cause some incidents. Anyway, I was thrilled and I thought this story tend to unhappily.

“Journey to Mars”

I was an astronaut and I went to Mars with Maki and Buck. On the way to Mars, a wormhole appeared, and I decided to go into the wormhole. So I went to another time or place. Suddenly Buck attempted to kill Maki so I killed him reluctantly. After that, Maki and I recognized that we couldn’t go back to the earth, so I decided to land at a blue planet. The planet was very comfortable for us. The foods were very delicious, the climate was very comfortable, and the animals were friendly, but longer and longer we stayed there, we forgot who we were gradually. One day, a snake appeared.

“The North Fence”

In this story, I'm a ranch hand. My task is to check the fence to save horses from wild animals. In this book, there are some scenes where I decide what to do. At the end, I happened to encounter six wolves. Fortunately, I didn't die. But my boss, Gilberd, was hurt by a trap. So when I read this story again, I want to choose another way to help my boss. Although in the real world, I have never seen wild wolves. If I unfortunately encountered them and I was killed by them, I could make another try.

“The Ooze”

In this story: OOZE is the very strange thing. So the biology teacher was really interested in it. But his study was suspicious. And ooze looked sad. So I tried to help it. I got the bucket which in ooze out of lab, but there were security guards everywhere. So I went to jail for stealing the ooze. Soon my friend came to visit my jail, and to help me escape!

What did the science teacher try to do? Was it really for study? I want to know the fact. Also I want to know the fact of the ooze. What is ooze? What  is the ooze made from?

Our Conclusion

Every book we read in this series has some happy endings and some bad endings, and almost all endings make us think about the continuation or messages of these stories. Owing to this system, we are able to not only read the stories but also we can consider what the stories mean. Therefore using this series in the field of education can lead the students to study English and think about what is happiness, friends, death, or other essential things like that in our life.

References

Ito, L. (2015) , Backstage Pass, Florida and Tokyo: Atama-ii Books.

Kannenberg, T. (2015). The North Fence. Florida and Tokyo: Atama-ii Books.
 Kyle, M. (2015). The Ooze.  Florida and Tokyo: Atama-ii Books.
Raine, P. (2014). Journey to Mars. Florida and Tokyo: Atama-ii Books.