I am currently on long term assignment at a middle school. I looked at one of the free documents with my Teacher Eyes. (My teacher eyes are different than my regular eyes, because my Teacher Eyes can stop misbehavior before it starts.) The story was okay. But this is marketed to 4th to 8th? No. Just...no. I would say it's a 2nd grade reading level, which yes, you have 4th graders reading below grade level. But the *sensibility* is low elementary. I know exactly what my ESE students would say: "That was dumb." [They wouldn't say "retarded," because they know that induces RAGE in Mrs. Jerel.]

Each story has 3 discussion questions. The questions were good. They were things like "if you were a character in this story, what would you do?" or in a story about a dinosaur "Would you want a dinosaur for a pet? Why or why not?" But frankly, most competent teachers would have come up with the same questions.

So, substandard materials and the "CEO" is a special brand of asshole. Okay!