Genre: Children’s/Middle Grade fiction Summary: Matilda is born into a family that entirely different from her and often leave her to her own devices. She uses this freedom to grow her mind in incredible ways. Most appropriate for: just about anyone. Sensitivities: none. Classroom library? yes. Enjoyability: ★★★★★ (5/5) I don’t know how I have gone 26 years without reading Matilda but now I’ve finally read it and I’m so glad. As a teacher, the beginning few pages include some teacher humor I especially enjoyed. The writing was charming and the plot kept me wanting to read more. However, as someone who has seen the movie multiple times, I was surprised by how exact the movie was to the book. This is both a blessing and a curse. Fantastic and charming read. Teachability: ★★★ (3/5) While being a fantastic story, I don’t know that it’s one that I would invest time in for educational purposes - outside of giving it to students to help them cultivate a love for reading. I definitely think I’ll be obtaining another copy to put in my classroom for my lower readers. Another way I think this book might be useful is to help ELL/ESL students read in English. Because the movie so closely follows the book, I could definitely see having students watch clips from the movie and then read from the book. Or vice versa. My school also has thematic units and one of our units is “Self-Advocacy”. I could definitely see this movie being used as an example of that, as Matilda learns very early on that the best person to help you get what you want is yourself. She is constantly working to achieve her goals and figuring out what she needs to do to find her own success.
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AuthorIn the quest to turn my students into lifelong readers, the best way that I can prepare is to be a reader myself. Archives
February 2017
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