SuitabookTessie tames her tongue
Melissa Martin
- Reading
- Read together and pause before the outcome to ask how each person might feel when they cannot speak. Afterwards, practise taking turns without treating talkativeness as a character flaw.
- Themes
- Listening and conversational space: Tessie talks loudly, talks with her mouth full and does not give others a chance to say what they think; she learns to talk less and listen more. The book?s stance on this remains unclear.
- Social responses to difference: Her brother complains, classmates ignore her, and a school counsellor helps her change her conversational behaviour. The book includes several responses to Tessie, but their fairness, emotional impact and wider meaning cannot be determined.
- Worth knowing
- Notice how the adults and other children respond to Tessie’s behaviour, and whether the story makes room for her strengths as well as asking her to change.