Birds (Penguin Longman Reader Level 2) [Paperback]

Daphne Du Maurier (Author)

Book Description

Series: Penguin Longman Reader Level 2

It is a very cold winter and there are many more birds around than usual. Nat is afraid, for the birds keep coming in their thousands and they are hungry. They want to kill. "Penguin Readers" is a series of simplified novels, film novelizations and original titles that introduce students at all levels to the pleasures of reading in English. Originally designed for teaching English as a foreign language, the series' combination of high interest level and low reading age makes it suitable for both English-speaking teenagers with limited reading skills and students of English as a second language. Many titles in the series also provide access to the pre-20th century literature strands of the National Curriculum English Orders. "Penguin Readers" are graded at seven levels of difficulty, from "Easystarts" with a 200-word vocabulary, to Level 6 (Advanced) with a 3000-word vocabulary. In addition, titles fall into one of three sub-categories: "Contemporary", "Classics" or "Originals". At the end of each book there is a section of enjoyable exercises focusing on vocabulary building, comprehension, discussion and writing. Some titles in the series are available with an accompanying audio cassette, or in a book and cassette pack. Additionally, selected titles have free accompanying "Penguin Readers Factsheets" which provide stimulating exercise material for students, as well as suggestions for teachers on how to exploit the Readers in class.

Product Details

• Paperback: 48 pages
• Publisher: Pearson Elt (November 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0582417988
• ISBN-13: 978-0582417984
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 4.9 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,442,139 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars ...about crazy birds, June 4, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Birds, The (Phoenix 60p paperbacks) (Paperback)

I think the book is well written. There are a lot of tension and the tension is kept throughout the whole book. The situation of Nat and his family is shown well because you just see Nat's point of view and so you know how he sees that crazy situation of having millions of birds attack his family. You can feel the danger of the bird attacks and the fear and the helpness of the whole population.
I think the story isn't very difficult to understand. It's written in an easy English. Alfred Hitchcock took the idea of the birds' attacks from Du Maurier and made a great film out of it. But the story is very different from the book - only the bird's attack ia still the same.

3 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Timeless, June 23, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Birds and Other Stories (Paperback)

I think the book birds von Daphne du Maurier is a good short novel. It's a little bit short, but that is not really bad. Because of the shortness, the book can't become boring.
I like that the story is mysterious. The attack from the birds is
inexplicable. It's not the usual behaviour of birds. But in spite of them, the story is believable, because the attack is possible. The birds are able to kill a woman or a man. If the animals were worms or something else, then story would be unbelievable and stupid.
Another thing I like is the relation from the birds and the nature. The birds stand in this book for all nature disaster. It's just an other representation. I think it's a ingenious representaion.
The book is timeless. Daphne du Maurier wrote this book brief after the second world war. It also have a relation to the war. And today the book get read again and again. In some years the book will probably be as popular as now.

8 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This review is for the audio version., March 12, 2004

By 

J. Tate (Ok USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Birds (Bell Canada Reading) (Audio CD)

I absolutely love the story "The Birds" and was so excited when I found there was an audio CD version of it. Little did I know this version wasn't an unabridged reading--not even an abridged reading, it was rubbish that was painful to the ears.

In this audio version there about 4 or 5 people, some male, some female, and after every sentence one of them read, overlapping the other. So it goes something like this:

Guy: [The guy sat there looking at the birds]
Now, as soon as he started saying "birds" a female would kick in with the next sentence.
Female: [the birds were acting strange]
then another guy
then somebody else
THE WHOLE WAY THROUGH!

It was so bad, after listening to less than 2 minutes of it, I packed it up, and sent it back. Something that awful shouldn't be on the market. Especially when it's being done to such a fantastic story.