New Horizon (textbook)
New Horizon is an English language textbook used by junior high school students in Japan. It first came out in 1966. It is published by Tokyo Shoseki. There are three volumes, one for each of the three years of school. As of 2003, around 40% of schools were using "New Horizon" as their English textbook. Characters. There are several characters whose adventures centered on the fictional Wakaba Junior High School inspire the books' grammar and vocabulary lessons. These characters, updated in the revised 2006 edition of the text, are as follows: Their teachers are a Canadian Assistant  Language Teacher (ALT) named Ann Green and Kazuko Sato (佐藤 和子 "Satō Kazuko"), a Japanese woman who is mostly ignored by the authors. The 2006 edition has only minor changes from the previous edition; e.g., there are T-shirts on sale instead of shoes, and the kids visit Canada instead of Australia. In April 2016 new characters and visuals in the fictional Midori (green) High School are introduced: Their ALT is named Ellen Baker who was born in Boston, USA. Her brother Mike works in a Chinese cuisine restaurant in Japan. Mary Brown is her friend who also hails from  Boston. Popular culture. The appearance of Ellen Baker went viral, with much fan art causing concern to the original artist, prompting him to call for restraint on her fans.