The Best of Times?

by Alan Maley

[Cambridge Readers Level 6]

Chee Seng, a 16-year-old Malaysian boy, has to grow up fast as he lives through the best and the worst of times. He suffers heartbreak as his parents' marriage falls apart and experiences the joys and heartache of first love.

112 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2009

About the author

Alan Maley worked for The British Council from 1962 to 1988, serving as English Language Officer in Yugoslavia, Ghana, Italy, France, and China, and as Regional Representative in South India (Madras). From 1988 to 1993 he was Director-General of the Bell Educational Trust, Cambridge. From 1993 to 1998 he was Senior Fellow in the Department of English Language and Literature of the National University of Singapore, and from 1998 to 2003 he was Director of the graduate programme at Assumption University, Bangkok. He is currently a freelance consultant, and Series Editor for the Oxford University Press Resource Books for Teachers series.

His publications include Resource Book for Teachers: Literature, Beyond Words, Sounds Interesting, Sounds Intriguing, Words, Variations on a Theme, and Drama Techniques in Language Learning (all with Alan Duff), The Mind's Eye (with Françoise Grellet and Alan Duff), Learning to Listen and Poem into Poem (with Sandra Moulding), Short and Sweet, and The English Teacher's Voice.

Reviews

[Close Enough · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is about a teenage called Chee Seng and he had some troubles after the separation of his parents.
At the outset he lived an ordinary life among his small family and he was very close to his father.  They shared many activities together, overall they lived in a peaceful environment but many changes took place overnight; his father started dating another woman, he cheated on his wife with her intimate friend Veena; unfortunately, Chee Seng was a witness to his betrayal.

The unity of the happy family tore apart after that heavy adversity; Chee seng's father left the home and his mother turned to be rough and unbearable. He couldn't handle the separation of his parents; he felt lonely, forsaken and worthless.
He started hanging out with bad company, eventually he decided to leave home with his girlfriend.

Well, this book was not perfect neither worse because it deals with very sensitive subjects like , adolescence, separation, betrayal, relations and in general it raises the awareness of the challenges that separation brings to a peaceful family and I think this is the strong spot in this book.
What I did not like about this book is the plot, it is very simple and even naive, the story flowed very slowly, the characters also were imperfectly crafted.



I think parents should remain unity of family as father and mother and kids ( instead of wife and husband) .I think that this is the tiny detail ought to change in the case of separation or divorcpe to raise their children naturally.

As the old idiom said don't put all eggs in one baske. The parents and the woman especially should be intelligent in dealing with similar cases; if i will have such experience I won't lose my children too by neglecting them or blame them for my loss.

Parents must stop pointing fingers  at one of them to win the children's sympathy.

One of the significant elements parent should take in consideration is that confirming to the child that they are still a family, may help the child to accept the new conditions and live healthily.

In separating case or divorce mostly parents tend to use their children as weapon and I think that won't solve the problem but it will cause a bad impact on kids.

[Anas Aqeel]

I was just wasting my time :D :D

[Shizuka]

4/17 80min
Malaysian boy
Parents
School
Confused
Marriage
Relationship
Friends