SuitabookMariella, Queen of the Skies
Eoin Colfer
- Reading
- Read it together if possible, pausing to consider what Mariella hopes to achieve and how the flying suit changes the problem. Afterwards, compare her view of bedtime with the adults’ view.
- Themes
- Creativity and determination: Mariella loves inventing and responds to bedtime interrupting her ideas by building a rocket-powered flying suit. The book presents this favourably.
- Sleep and wellbeing: Bedtime conflicts with Mariella’s desire to continue inventing, and the story states that everyone needs sleep. Sleep is presented as important to wellbeing and to retaining Mariella’s ideas, giving the plot a clear everyday-life theme.
- Family boundaries: Mum and Dad insist on bedtime while Mariella wants to keep working on her inventions. The disagreement creates the story’s starting problem, but its broader treatment of parental authority and child independence cannot be determined.
- Worth knowing
- Pay attention to how Mariella’s independence is balanced with Mum and Dad’s insistence on bedtime, and whether the story treats her experiment mainly as exciting, risky, funny or instructive.