About "Return of the Exile"
"Return of the Exile" is part of the "Talismen" web comic, an epic fantasy by Barb Jacobs and Steven P. Jones. "Return of the Exile" tells the story of four young men who return to the Plane of Imaginings, from their childhood exile on Earth. Book I follows Ollie, the first exile to return.
Talismen: Return of the Exile is Copyright © by Barb Jacobs and Steven P. Jones.
About This Demo
Adding speaking voices to "Return of the Exile" provides language and literacy support for older learners and enhances the pleasure, humor, and dramatic immediacy of the story. We're committed to making the audio as fresh and creative as the comic itself, and sometimes we use accents to enliven the characters. We give learners the opportunity to play the entire sentence in this dramatic, fluent form. And to support their learning, we also give them the ability to play each word separately, to hear its clear and correct pronunciation.
While much of the text is simple, "Return of the Exile" does include a few complex English sentences and vocabulary words. We feel this range of language will engage many levels of learners from junior high through adult, either as reluctant readers or English language learners.
Our speakers in this demo are Cary Wendell and Betsy Kimball.
The demo contains two excerpts from Chapter 1 of "Return of the Exile".
Excerpt 1
Pages 1 through 7: The first exile, Ollie Steele, pops from immanent death on Earth back to the Plane of Imaginings. His old friend Astrina recognizes him and so does the village father, but Ollie doesn't know if this is a dream or real life. The excerpt ends as a villager sends a messenger dragon to inform the Grey Knight of Ollie's return.
Excerpt 2
Pages 17 through 20: Before this excerpt begins, Ollie has been beset by nightmares and is nearly pulled into the Realm of Nightmares. He awakens so shaken that he is determined to get out of this strange village immediately. Before he leaves, Mother Christiona presses on him the sword she has been safekeeping for his return. At the beginning of Excerpt 2, his friend Astrina races across the village to stop him from leaving.
How to Play the Demo
- To hear sentences spoken dramatically and fluently, move the mouse into a dialog balloon. When speaking is active, the cursor becomes a pointing hand. To stop the speaking sentences, move the mouse out of the balloon.
- To hear an individual word pronounced, click on the word. When you move the mouse over a word, the cursor changes to an "I beam" shape to indicate that you can click. (A few browsers don't support the I beam shape, but you can still click to hear the word.)
- Don’t forget to play exclamations and sound effects, like "GASP!" or "CLANG!".
- To move through the demo, click the right arrow to go forward and the left arrow to go back. The double arrows will take you to the end or beginning of the demo.
