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Telephone booth on a dark, spooky street, lit from within cover image for The Night Telephone by Greta Gorsuch

The Night Telephone

by Greta Gorsuch

The lonely phonebooth looks abandoned. But people drive up, one by one, and make mysterious calls in the middle of the night. Why on earth are they there at that hour? Who are they calling?

Reading Level 2.9

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More About the Book

Dr. Tarak Kapoor cannot sleep. He has just taken a job as a telemedicine doctor in Texas. Garnet is two days and five airports away from his home in Mumbai. Tarak is so tired, but his body thinks it’s lunchtime in India. By 2:30 a.m. he is wandering the empty streets. To his surprise, he finds a brightly lit pay telephone next to a set of broken traffic lights. Even though it’s the middle of the night, people drive up one by one and make calls. Why on earth are they here at this hour? Who are they calling?

The mystery deepens when Tarak retraces his steps the next day. All he finds is an empty lot covered with dirt and trash. Perhaps he has made a mistake. His jet lag is pretty bad. But when he returns that night, the phone booth is back in its spot, glowing brightly. Tarak picks up his courage when an old man stops his car to make a call. Tarak questions him about the phone. The man asks, “Is there someone you want to call?” and drives away into the empty night. As Tarak looks at the phone, it begins to ring. Will he answer the night telephone?

Further Information

Reading Level: 2.9

Formats: Paperback | Audiobook | Ebook

ISBN: 9781956476248

Teaching Resources: Lesson Plans

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About the Author

Greta Gorsuch has taught ESL/EFL and applied linguistics for more than 30 years in Japan, Vietnam, and the U.S. She is an experienced materials writer who actively researches foreign language reading and pronunciation. Greta’s work has appeared in journals such as System, Reading in a Foreign Language, Language Teaching, Language Teaching Research, and TESL-EJ. She recently co-authored Second Language Course Evaluation and Second Language Testing for Student Evaluation and Classroom Research (both from Information Age Publishing). She lives in beautiful wide West Texas and goes camping whenever she can.

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