New Horizon

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For NASA's Pluto and EKBO exploration probe, see New Horizons.

New Horizon is an English language textbook used by junior high school (中学校) students in Japan. It first came out for the 2002 school year. It is published by Tokyo Shoseki. There are three volumes, one for each of the three years of school.

[edit] Characters

There are several characters whose random adventures centred around the fictional Wakaba Junior High School inspire the books's grammar and vocabulary lessons. These characters, as updated for the revised 2006 edition of the text, are as follows:

• Judy Brown - An African-American girl from New York.
• Ito Emi (伊藤絵美) - A young Japanese girl.
• Shin Tanaka (田中慎) - A young Japanese boy.
• Mike Davis - A young Australian.
• Lisa - Ms Green's sister who lives in Australia.
• Koji (浩司) - Lisa's Japanese husband.
• Bill - Ms. Green's little brother.
• Bin - Koji's friend.

Their teachers are a Canadian ALT named Ms. Ann Green and Ms. Kazuko Sato (佐藤和子), a Japanese woman who is mostly ignored by the authors. Apart from minor changes such as T-shirts being on sale instead of shoes, and the kids visiting Canada instead of Australia, little has changed in the 2006 version of the textbook.