Naughty but nice (My Naughty Little Sister - Dorothy Edwards)

Member Name: belglen

Product:	My Naughty Little Sister - Dorothy Edwards
Date:	16/11/08 (410 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A good read for children

Disadvantages: Language a bit old fashioned

My daughter is now seven years old and in school she is being taught to read by the phonics method. I found the method quite difficult to get an understanding of, I couldn't understand why they were taught to read by learning sounds rather than how to make words through spelling. I can now say that I have become more comfortable with the method, she has been learning this way for over two years. My daughter is now at the stage where we are to encourage her to read on her own, in school this is called independent reading and we are to continue with this at home. In order to encourage my daughter to gain confidence in her reading we have enrolled her at the local library. On the last trip to the library we picked up a book by Dorothy Edwards called "My Naughty Little Sister", illustrated by Shirley Hughes.

Dorothy Edwards was a British author, writing children's stories, poems and other articles, she was born in 1914 and died in 1982, further information on Dorothy can be found in wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Edwards.

Dorothy Edwards wrote five books of stories in the series called My Naughty Little Sister, the original book of the series was written for the BBC Radio programme Listen With Mother. The titles in the series are:
My Naughty Little Sister
More Naughty Little Sister Stories
My Naughty Little Sister and Bad Harry
When MY Naughty Little Sister Was Good
My Naughty Little Sister's Friends

So far we have only read the first and original in the series, My Naughty Little Sister. The book is a series of stories and this divides the book into chapters, each story could be read in isolation or the stories could be read out of order. Some of the stories are longer than the others but none are any longer than ten pages, some are as short as six pages. In total there are 15 stories in the book, some of the story titles are:
Going fishing
When my Naughty Little Sister wasn't well
The wiggly tooth
The fairy doll
My Naughty Little Sister goes to school
My Naughty Little Sister and the workmen

The purpose of going to the library and in getting the books is to encourage my daughter to read independently, however I have read some of the stories. I was very surprised that when she started to read the book she wanted to keep reading it and indeed finished reading it in a matter of days. We have talked about the book and what she liked about it, she said it was very funny and she really enjoyed reading about the naughty little sister. I have three children, 2 boys and a girl, perhaps my daughter enjoyed the stories so much because she could have an imaginary little sister, without any of the hassle.

My daughter's favourite story in the collection is "My Naughty Little Sister at the party". The story is about the little girl being invited to a birthday party, the party is for her best friend who just happens to be a naughty little boy. Not to give too much away but the two of them are very hungry and are enticed by a very large trifle. Needless to say the poor girl ends up with a very sore tummy in the night. My daughter thought this was a very funny story.

At no point in the stories do we discover the name of the naughty little sister, we just hear of her exploits. I found the book quite old fashioned in style and the mischief the children get up to never really causes much harm, other than to them. The original story was written in 1952 and I suppose the stories represent the moral code of the time. This does not mean that the stories can not be enjoyed by modern children, in fact my daughter wants to read the rest of the series so we will be looking for more of them in the library.

The stories are very easy to read and no chapter is too long or complicated, my daughter did not appear to lose interest. The stories can be read out load or are suitable for silent reading, the language appears to be very suited for 7 to 8 year olds, there are a few small illustrations throughout the book. The style is very conversational and it is the sister of the naughty little sister who tells the story, it is very easy to read and I would thoroughly recommend it.

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Summary: Funny stories from yester year