This textbook works well for a communicative Spanish classroom. There are definitely contrived parts and the organization is not optimal at times, but, the "así se dice" phrase boxes provide students with more than simple words, enabling them to use more native-like expressions very early on in their language acquisition.
I will be using Level 1 this coming year but then my school will adopt new textbooks. These are quite outdated so I look forward to an updated version, but, I wonder what quirks I will find once we have them that I won't appreciate.