I am in a quandary about this book. The main character, Sophie, has a birthmark on her face that has gotten bigger. She tries to hide it and her mother enables her to avoid situations where she would be on display. Sophie gets teased. But... Sophie thinks she was cursed by a witch as a child and maybe she can find a way to reverse the curse and no longer be a monster. Sophie knows there are monsters all around - the man hitting on her mom, the neighbor, her new principal, her new friend. She knows all this from a handbook of monsters that she takes everywhere. Can Sophie find a cure for the curse she is under?
So my quandary is this... I read for middle grade students and in some cases this reads as middle grade except for the fact that Sophie actually believes she is a monster and that there are monsters around. That seems hard to believe for a 4th graders plus... but if she is more like a 2nd or 3rd grader, then middle grade students aren't as likely to read it. I also found the monster handbook very didactic.
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