Briefly, eight year old Violette is orphaned and is sent to live with her uncle, who is a cleaner at the Palace of Versailles. At first Violette is miserable and silent, but she gradually warms up to her new home and her uncle -- but now the authorities have decided to send her away... (I think this book is based on a short animated film.)
It's been a long, long time -- so long I literally can't remember -- since I had to work to read a book. I took it one page at a time so I didn't feel overwhelmed. It was frustrating at times. Sometimes I got the translation wildly wrong, sometimes I deciphered it on the first attempt. I was relieved when a big illustration shortened a chunk of text; I gulped when I was confronted with a long slab of words. It's been a really good reminder of just how hard this reading caper can be. But the sense of triumph and satisfaction when I reached the end was absolutely wonderful.
It's so true that if you're a bookworm who has always found reading easy, it can be very hard to empathise with people who find reading hard. I've found it very instructive trying to read books in Welsh (mostly failing!) and even more so, trying to learn Greek on Duolingo which is, of course, a completely different alphabet. It's very useful to remind myself that this is what some children constantly feel when having to decipher a page of text.
ReplyDeleteWelsh and Greek! You are definitely up for a challenge, Ann :) Yes, it was a really good reminder for me. Perhaps it's significant that the daughter who bought it for me is the one who has dyslexia!
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