The A1 Challenge Literature-In-English (Aifa J. Printing Productions, Lagos; 2015) by Gideon Brobbey is a manual specifically written to aid senior secondary students in obtaining an A1 in the subject.

Brobbey’s aim is to provide a straightforward and detailed explanation or analysis on all the novels, poems and drama for the 2016 to 2020 West Africa Senior School Certificate (WASSCE), syllabus. Brobbey is quick to remind the students to read the texts before turning to this manual, as it serves as a guide.

The A1 Challenge Literature-In-English is beautifully structured. The writer starts with an introduction to the subject matter, in a simple language that is easily to understand. He occasionally inserts challenging questions, including past questions that hype the reader’s interest.

Chapters two to eleven discuss the texts and poems. The writer is able to break it down to the point of defining some unusual and complex words in the poems to benefit the reader, words such as temperate, ow’st, wand’rest, grow’st and so on.

Brobbey is able to communicate the purpose of the book to the reader in a comprehensive way, where he explains in detail issues surrounding the texts, and also providing a character by character analysis to give the reader clearer context.

The writer gives test questions, according to him, “possible examination questions” at the end of every text, thereby leading the students to understanding more on the subject matter and texts.

Some of the books Brobbey discuss include Othello by Williams Shakespeare, Lonely Day by Bayo Adebowale, Fearless by Amma Darko, Harvest of Corruption by Frank Ogodo among others. And the poems include ‘The Anvil and the Hammer’ by Kofi Awoonor, ‘Vanity’ by Birgago Diop, ‘The Panic of Growing Older’ by Lenrie Peters, ‘Ambush’ by Gbemisola Remi Adeoti, ‘The Proud King’ by William Morris, ‘The School Boy’ by William Blake and so on.

Uncharacteristically, The A1 Challenge Literature-In-English has a few typographical errors.