Marvin and the Mean Words Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)A fantastic story by Suzy Kline, author of the Horrible Harry series (great!), as well as the Herbie Jones series (mediocre). Here, Kline is at her best, giving us insight into Marvin---a boy who likes to tease others in his class. When Marvin overhears his teacher saying that she hates Marvin, he is flooded with feelings of rage and insecurity. Although it turns out to be a big misunderstanding in the end, Kline takes time in this engaging and fun story to explore Marvin's motives for teasing others. Marvin's anger and tendency to lash out at other kids has to do with his trouble learning to read and spell and his feelings about what he thought his teacher said. But when his beloved Grandma Nonna comes on a class field trip with her long tube that she uses to hear better, Marvin makes some discoveries about respecting others differences. Like all the best children's authors, Suzy Kline is able to present moral lessons to children in a realistic, but subtle manner. Kline does not get out the moral sledgehammer to bonk her readers on the head, rather she demonstrates through wonderful storymaking some of the gradual changes in Marvin.
While Marvin and the Mean Words is in the DRA 24 range in decoding and vocabulary, the comprehension score is more like a 28. Kline includes two Normal Rockwell prints that leads to discussion in Marvin's class before they are on their way to the Norman Rockwell Museum. Some of the terms such as The Saturday Evening Post and the relevance in the story of the now defunct Hartford Whalers hockey team, might also need some additional explanation.

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