It Moved! by Anne Fine

It Moved! by Anne Fine
Buy It Moved! by Anne Fine at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: For Sharing
Reviewer: Magda Healey
Summary: An entertaining early reader which touches on ideas of belief, evidence and social influence, recommended for reading aloud to older beginner readers and newly confident readers.
Buy? Maybe	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 64	Date: July 2007
Publisher: Walker Books Ltd
ISBN: 978-1406304305
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It's "show and tell" and the whole class have their mouths agape when Lily puts a boring grey rock on the table. She didn't want to bring her chocolate rabbit because it would get eaten, couldn't bring a computer game because they are banned, and was afraid to bring her puppets as their strings could get tangled up. So she brought a rock. The rock is special, because it moves by itself - or so Lily says.

At first, children are incredulous, but Lily insists, and soon the whole class is standing around in the playground, watching, watching, watching and speculating. Even some members of the school staff join them! Of course, not everybody believes that a rock can move. But the lone rationalist is overwhelmed by the pressure of the group and reduced to stomping, screeching huff (I could truly empathise!). WILL it move?

"It Moved!" is a nice little book, simple but stimulating. It's short and thus appropriate for newly emergent readers, it's very funny, it's placed in a school environment that children will be able to relate to and it actually - at least for an adult reading it - touches on some quite important subjects (why do we believe things? if many people think something is true, does it make it true? how hard it is to resist social pressure to conform, how things are sometimes more that they seem ) as well as providing the delicious satisfaction of Lily getting rather triumphantly out of what seemed to be quite a hopeless predicament (bringing just about the most boring object imaginable for "show and tell").

There are one or two difficult words ( reproachful), but the general level of the text is very simple. However, the dialogue is very natural and dynamic and "It Moved!" doesn't feel at all stilted or artificial. Definitely recommended for reading aloud maybe with an odd paragraph or two read by a child of 5-6 year old who can't cope with longer text yet, and also an excellent little read for children who are capable of reading by themselves already.

Thank you to the publisher for sending this title to the BookBag.

Another early reader we liked, but with slightly more challenging language is Flotsam and Jetsam and the Stormy Surprise.

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You can read more book reviews or buy It Moved! by Anne Fine at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.

Reviews of other books by Anne Fine

The Road of Bones

How To Write Really Badly

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