Bookmarks is a series of companion textbooks that provides teachers with creative exercises and activities to supplement the teaching of a novel. Bookmarks are integrated reading-writing skills texts that address each of the seven intelligences identified by Howard Gardner: there are tasks/activities for the linguistically, logically-mathematical, kinesthetically, spatially, musically, interpersonally, and intrapersonally intelligent students.

A Companion Text for Like Water for Chocolate provides exercises and activities for ESL students who are reading the English translation of the novel by Laura Esquivel (published by Doubleday). Set during the late-19th and early-20th centuries, Like Water for Chocolate is a story about an extended Mexican family and what happens when one daughter is not permitted to marry the man she loves. Cooking and food are central to the storyline and help thread the story together.

Each of the six units in the companion texts begins with a preview of the reading and free-writing topics, followed by exercises that improve comprehension and vocabulary building. Students use response journals so as to think about their personal connection with the novel. The Beyond the Novel section in each textbook introduces factual background information from which students learn about history and other interesting material mentioned in the novels.