North Star is great, but Side by Side I could easily do without. My personal fave is a new series from Longman. Some years back they came out with a series called What A Life and it contained bios of famous people from all of the world. It's great, but the new series from them: What A World rocks! There are 3 levels and contains stories from around the globe. Examples: how did the Egyptians make mummies, what are fattening rooms, the legend of Kind Arthur, who invented the www, etc. Every story has vocabulary, comprehension, discussion, and writing exercises. And a wonderful bonus: books 1 & 2 have a CD available, so you can easily turn a reading lesson into a listening lesson.
I've tried out these books and students really enjoy them. It's history, world culture, and language learning rolled into one. Oh, and the cover picture for each story really opens up the class to context prediction or any warmer activity you may want to do.
