Brian McGuinn‘s 25 minute documentary film about New York native, Ashrita Furman will make you smile from ear to ear. Mr. Furman (born in 1954) became intrigued by The Guinness Book of World Records as a boy. Years later Furman decided to dedicate his life to setting as many Guinness World Records as he could. The film details many of his crazy records and depicts a highly creative person content with his life. Use the film as an introduction to using either the Guinness site or their books.

The Guinness Book of World Records website http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/ and its hard copy books are constant favourites in most school libraries. The Guinness Book of World Records now provides some reading comprehension resources for students. This is a UK resource for junior-intermediate students so it doesn’t quite match the Ontario Language Curriculum but works well anyway because the comprehension questions have the target expectation in brackets. Teachers can, for example, choose whether they want their students to work on inference, point of view or personal opinion type of question.

Teachers can check out a free sample of their books at:

http://www.risingstars-uk.com/uploads/publications/1158.pdf