Since there are seven different Pontes Books versions of the The Prince and the Pauper, it can be a little confusing knowing which ones are right for you. In our previous blog post we gave some recommendations regarding how to decide which books to choose. This post is focusing specifically on our parallel text versions (orange, purple, and pink).
How to find the books:
- All of the books are available on Amazon (try seaching “The Prince and the Pauper Pontes Books”), but since this company and these novels are brand new, they don’t always show up initially in search results on Amazon. The easiest way to get direct links to all the different versions is to visit our Products Page.
What are parallel texts? Our parallel text versions include TWO BOOKS IN ONE! A parallel text is a version of a story that includes two different versions presented side-by-side. (see below)
In The Prince and the Pauper orange, purple, and pink versions, the left page is always from the original (or red) version and the right page is always from one of the bridge versions. See how the different versions combine below:
Since most people are not used to reading texts in this way, we at Pontes Books came up with a few ideas for how to read this style of text. It is important to note that most of these recommendations are with teachers teaching The Prince and the Pauper in mind; however, they can apply to anyone reading the book!
You should notice that all of the suggestions listed above involve reading the both the left and right pages (original and bridge versions). If you are going to get a parallel text version, it’s important to always try to read the original as much as posssible. The bridge version is meant to be a support, but the ultimate goal is to be able to read the original side without relying on the bridge version at all. The suggestions listed above all help to work toward this goal in different ways.
The most thorough way to read the story (and also therefore the slowest way to read the story) is the third option (highlight unknown words/phrases on the left and their equivalent words/phrases on the right). Although this may be a slow process, it really helps to connect the trickier words and phrases to more modern translations, which ultimately help to build vocabulary skills in particular.
It is also important to point out that some of these steps might be more difficult to do when using the pink version. Since the amount of text in the white version has been cut in half, you cannot always find the equivalent words and phrases in the bridge version in this particular parallel text. The best strategies for the pink version would be any that go page-by-page (either starting on the left side or pre-reading on the right side) because the content covered on the page will be the same in both versions, but it might not go paragraph-by-paragraph.
If you have any questions, contact us at admin@pontesbooks.com.
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