Cécile Lainé

“Alice”, a French language reader about a girl who kicks…

FOR FREE RESOURCES, SCROLL DOWN TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST.

I am thrilled to present my first novel: Alice (also available in Spanish).

SYNOPSIS

“When Alice, a girl who lives in the south of France, finds out she and her family are moving to Paris in a month, she is far from happy. Her friend suggests she makes a list of the most important things she wants to accomplish before she leaves. Alice writes four items on her list and sets off on a quest to discover what truly matters to her.”

READING LEVEL

The novel has 4,700 words and 340 headwords, including a lot of words similar to English (I don’t delete cognates from the total word count). I wrote it with level 2 and above students in mind. Here is a sample for you to read in order to decide if the language is appropriate for your students.

THEMES: Friendship – Sports – Family – Perseverance – Love – Racism

PRAISE FOR “ALICE”

FREE RESOURCES

  • Listen to one chapter or the entire book, read by me 🙂 Click here to access the recording.
  • Ask compelling questions to engage students to relate the text to their own lives.
  • Tell the story of “Le Comte de Monte Cristo” using Story Listening supplementation
  • Visit Le Chateau d’If with this excellent video (and/or 3D technology if you have access to it) or use TV5Monde to learn a little more about this historic building.
  • Compare favorite ice creams, using Le Glacier du Roi’s mouth watering website and this awesome reportage.
  • Explore what Ramadan means with a 1 jour, 1 question video
  • Analyze “Je suis chez moi”, a song by Black M
  • Discuss l’immigration en France, using informative short videos by Generiques.org
  • Debate the place of women in sports using Alice as a starting point, and Women in soccer and Women in boxing as real life examples.
  • Here is a folder where teachers can share activities (as long as they don’t violate copyrights

I selected the above activities because I truly believe they provide more interesting input and cultural perspective. But remember… reading and enjoying the story is the surest way to acquire language, not doing a lot of extra activities.

PURCHASE YOUR COPIES

Buy from this site (paper back, $7.00)
Buy from CPLI.net and support a small business (paper back, $8.00)
Buy eBook from Amazon ($2.99)

35 comments

  4. Cécile- Merci milles fois. I am already hooked. I can’t wait to read how things develop especially with her simultaneous pursuit of a black belt and a kiss from Bilal. Also, thank-you for all of the links to real places that you explore in your reader. I will order 5 next week.

    Reply

  5. Cécile,

    I met you at the iFLT conference in St. Petersburg this past summer. I’m very interested in your new book! Because I teach at an all girls school, I’ve been looking for a level 2 reader with a female protagonist my students. They are currently reading Le Nouvel Houdini in the past tense. I read your sample, and I was wondering if you have a present tense and past tense version, or if there is any past tense in the book.

    Thanks!

    Susan Goudail

    Reply

    • Bonjour, I remember you Susan. All tenses are represented in the book, because I wrote it in a natural way. But the story is mostly told in the present, as the events unfold. So, if you are specifically looking for a text written in the past, I would not use my book. If you are looking for a girl your students will identify with, then I highly recommend it. I taught at an all girls school last year and I wrote this books with “my girls” in mind. Bonne chance!

      Reply

  6. Hello,
    I recently found your blog after looking for Musique Mercredi info. I have since subscribed to your Nouvelles du monde francophone and am looking forward to using this year. I read that are comprehension questions for each article but I cannot seem to find them. If you could steer me in the right direction that would be great.
    Thanks so much for all the great ideas for this novice teacher!
    Jennifer

    Reply

    • Hello, there are no comprehension question with the Petit Journal article. I am not sure where you read this. However if you want to join Le Petit Journal FB group, teachers sometimes share what they do with the articles there.

      Reply

  7. Salut, Céline! I am so excited to read your new book!!! Is it available to purchase anywhere else? Our school district will not buy from Amazon.

    Reply

      • Bonjour Cecile. I usually get some money from my school around November/ December and would love to purchase a couple directly from you. How would I do that?

      • Bonjour Theresa, you can do Paypal or mail a check. Please contact me via my Contact Tab and let me know how many you need and your address.

      • D’accord. Je m’en occupe dès que j’ai les fonds. Merci

  10. my students love the books and so do I! I only wish the dictionary were by chapters rather than alphabetical order. L’histoire est magnifique! Merci

    Reply

  11. Coucou! Merci pour avoir écrit ce livre! J’en ai commandé cinq (et j’en ai commandé cinq de Khadra aussi mais j’en passe!…) et j’ai hâte que mes élèves puissent commencer à le lire. Tu as indiqué sur FB que tu offrais la version orale que tu as lue en studio, et je me demandais si tu pouvais me la passer. Merci d’avance et bonne continuation à tout ce que tu fais 🙂

    Reply

  15. I just requested a class set of Alice for next year…so excited!! Merci Cécile!

    Reply

  22. Salut Cécile – on vient de terminer la lecture d’Alice et mes élèves l’ont bien aimé, particulièrement avec des détours concernant la ville de Marseille et l’histoire du Chateau d’If. Je me pose quelques questions:
    1. il est mentionné quelque part une organisation “Génériques.org” qui ne semble plus exister. J’aurais bien aimé parler plus des problèmes de racisme/immigration/islamophobie et je me demande comment vous abordez ce sujet en classe.
    2. Pourquoi avoir mentionné la marque de t-shirt NR? C’est répété encore dans un 2e chapitre, est-ce pour que les élèves parlent des produits locaux? ou bien la variété d’immigrants dans le sud de la France (haïtiens, dans ce cas)? Ou pour aucune raison en particulier? Mes élèves était un peu confus.
    Merci bien en avance!
    Erin

    Reply

Leave a Reply