“Over on the other side of the table stood the source of that delicious smell. A huge enormous gigantic colossal plate, and on the plate huge enormous gigantic colossal sausages the size of pillows, and huge enormous gigantic colossal potatoes the size of beach balls, and huge enormous gigantic colossal peas the size of cabbages.”
Some of you might recognise the above passage from Roger Hargreaves’ Mr Greedy, part of his Mr Men and Little Miss series.
What about it? Well, experts used that paragraph as an example of why the book is harder to read than Roald Dahl classics like The Magic Finger and Fantastic Mr Fox.
Statisticians and psychometricians (which is now our new favourite tongue-twister) from Renaissance Learning examined more than 33,000 books for children and young people. They scanned every page and gave each book a difficulty level between 0 (the easiest) and 13.5 (the highest).
Mr Greedy was rated 4.4. The Magic Finger and Fantastic Mr Fox rated 3.1 and 4.1 respectively.
Sendco Gemma Corby, from Hobart High School, in Norfolk, was surprised. “It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that because a book has colourful pictures it requires a lower reading age to comprehend it,” she said.
If you’re after a challenging read, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (unabridged) earned a 13.5 rating. Bad Bat by Laura Hambleton and No, Sid, No! by Kate Scott had the lowest score in the research, at 0.2.
