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1. It is short enough, at about 1000 Kindle locations, to cover in 8 weeks or so.
2. It is relatively easy to read. The online Flesch-Kincaid reading difficulty analyzer puts it at about a fourth grade level. It contains about 1400 unique words, of which I have selected about 500 as target vocabulary. I expect my students already know about half of these words. The issue is that I don't know which half, so I make the list rather inclusive.
3. It is at their intellectual level. Last year I taught Wayside School is Falling Down. It fully satisfies the readability criteria, but the subject matter is more appropriate to second or third graders than middle schoolers.
4. It tells something of American history. They learn about American farming and mail-order brides, two topics with which Ukrainian children can somewhat identify. I had hoped it might lead to a discussion of sex roles in society, but these children have not shown interest. At 12 years old they are too young. American educators – take note. If the children want to remain children, let them!
I'm trying an approach that I have not seen before. I am using video as a primary educational vehicle. I have prepared videos that show the text of the book in a column on the left, with translations of the vocabulary words and words that are needed for comprehension on the right. My hope is that by presenting them with the translations they can largely avoid getting tangled up with dictionaries. I read the text as it is displayed. I have broken the book out by chapters (there are 9) with a video for each of them, with the homework assignment included in the video. This ensures that they get the homework, and more than that, that they look at the video.
I will be happy to share my materials with any foreign language teacher. Only about 10% of my preparation has been specific to the Ukrainian and Russian languages. My work could be adapted to other languages and teaching environments. The instructor would need to review my list of unique words to decide for themselves which constitute a target vocabulary. The instructor could easily record the narration themselves, personalizing the presentation, and of course make up their own homework.
