books 2

Reading*

6 Read the book extracts 1-6 opposite and answerthe questions. There may be morę than one possible answer.

a)    Which extract describes a dangerous character?

b)    Which extract describes a middle-aged and not very handsome character?

c)    Which extract describes a probably very bossy and talkative character?

d)    Which extract describes a character who is a very active child?

e)    Which extract describes

a character who probably has a tough job outside?

f)    Which extract describes a character who is old but has a young mind?

7 a Work in groups. Read

the extracts again and

answerthe questions.

1    What type of person is being described in each extract?

2    What physical details are included? Do they show the person’s character?

3    What actions are shown? How do these reveal character?

4    Do any of the people sound attractive? Which words tell you this?

5    What type of book is it (funny, serious, etc.)?

b Discuss.

1    Which person do you think is the most/least attractive? Why?

2    Would you like to read any of the books?

Her grandmother was smali and thin,-with liny hands and feet - fast-movi„g f_ee, the size of a chi d s and

7* A°T ^{red friZZy hair that she} dyed the colom of RedI Dehcious apples. She had dfsappearing lips

painted large, lwice their size, the colour of pfu_ms All her life, shed been a dancer, every kmd of dane” _{Ev n}

°,^W- ^{at sevent}y-seven, shed put on tights and a leoiard and tutu, and do her ballet exercises in front of the long mirror on Alyssad bedroom door.

For one thing he was unlike any other man we'd ever seen - or heard of, if it came to that. With his weather-beaten face, wide teeth-crammed mouth, and far-seeing blue eyes, he looked like some wigwam warrior stained with suns and heroic slaughter.

(The Edge ofDay - Laurie Lee)

My father is still living, but less and less. Judge James Charles Endicott Jackson ... that tali, lean, hollow-cheeked man who had madę such a religion of the law, preached from the head of our dining-room table each evening of my young life.

(The Best Revenge - Jane Riller)

Nola is a tomboy, a hell-raiser, a maverick, and she s captured my heart like no other. She's got the broad choppy legs of an athletic boy and the scowl of an old maid. No matter how many baths she takes, she manages to smell unwashed. She stands in the sunlight, an amber specimen in a glass jar, still as an Indian or a stone. Then quick as an insect, she sparks into action, running down the hill where the wasps wont follow, stepping on the dried brown grass.

(The Stuntmans Daughter - Alice Blanchard)

He was fifty-five, but he could have been ten years either side of that. Thin sandy hair, a big awkward mouth. Bad teeth, crooked and dark when he smiled, jug-handle ears. As a self-conscious boy he'd tried different thmgs wi those ears. He'd madę an elasticised band with elaborate leather flaps to flatten his ears while he slepL He d Wed his hair short. He'd tried it long. Hed tned all kinds o hats. Eventually hed grown the moustache as a kmd of

diversionary tactic, and he d kept it.

(The Idea ofPerfection - Kate Gremnlle)

6_

He was just a hot-headed, twenty-year-old kid at the time, but he was greasy-fast with a gun. The problem was that he was spoiling for a fight and got it. At over six feet and one hundred and ninety pounds, he was a big boy and he had set out to prove to everyone that he was a man to reckon with.

(Slade - Robert Dyer)