The Moorchild by Eloise McGraw
I read this book for the March selection for my ‘Read it and Eat it’ Chapter Chicks book club a few years back. It is a folklore story that starts with the best dedication ever, “To all children who have felt different”. The story is a wonderful lesson for discussion about feeling different and how we treat people who we think may be different. It’s a good teaching starter about prejudice. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is marked for grade 4-7. It was fantastic. It could be read by anyone third grade up. I would recommend discussing it with any child as they are reading and after they have read it. Wonderful story. A different imaginative world and story to teach us tolerance.
I remembered reading the Moorchild, because I read the following for another book club.
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Furthermore by Tahereh Mafi
I read Furthermore for bookcon book club. They voted what book we would read and this book won the selection. The only thing I had heard about this book was that people thought it was like Alice in Wonderland, one of my very favorite books. It was not, however, in my opinion, anything like it. It does have a magical world that is described very well. This book is definitely written for the younger set about fourth grade through seventh. I personally thought it’d be a good starter book to help children read books of this genre. I was excited in the beginning of reading this, but then got weary of the characters who were ‘bratty’ and the story line which just was not for me. I think the descriptive part of the setting was the best part of the book. Overall the others reading it were not as thrilled either. About 60 percent no, 40 percent yes for liking it. My advice would be to take it out of the library to read, if you want to try it out.
