Muggie Maggie

This book covers the adventurious third-grader Maggie on her attempt to not learn cursive writing, no matter what! This determination brings her many trials as she is forced to deal with her own doubts when she decides that she really does want to learn cursive, and she battles the class pest and

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her caring teacher on this rebellious little journey.

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Maggie is a young girl who leads an average life. She goes to school, and plays with her friends. Normally she does well in school, but then comes the day her third grade class is expected to learn to write. Try as she might Maggie can not seem to learn to write, while the other kids make fun of

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her, Maggie's mom is very supportive.of her although Maggie gets frustrated and for a period refuses to try. Eventually she is baited into learning when a teacher tricks her into wanting to be able to read hand writing.

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I chose this book because I talked with my focus student and he told me that in class, they had just learned how to write cursive. This is story tells us about how Maggie refuses to learn, practice, or write anything in cursive because she doesn't like the challenge. I wanted to be able to share

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this story with my student because he currently feels the same way about learning cursive and if he can learn the same lesson Maggie does, I think this book would be a great encouragement to not only him- but his whole class!

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This book is about a girl named Maggie who is just entering third grade. While her class is learning to write in cursive she decides she doesn't want to participate. She believes that writing in print and using the computer is good enough and doesn't need to learn how to write in cursive. Her

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teacher gets a great idea to help motivate Maggie. The teacher lets Maggie be the classroom messenger and sends Maggie to deliver her notes to other teachers. Maggie's curiosity gets the best of her and she wants to see what the teachers are discussing, however, the letters are written in cursive and she can't read them. Realizing that she can't read cursive, Maggie finally decides that she will learn how to read and write cursive.

This wasn't one of my favorite books, but I thought the teacher's strategy on getting Maggie motivated was brilliant. I didn't even realize that sending Maggie to deliver the notes to other teachers was a strategy until the end. Honestly, I thought all these teachers were just being mean to her until I figured it out.

I would read this to a class that is just learning how to write in cursive. This way the students can relate to Maggie's feelings about learning a new way to write. I would have the class write a few sentences telling me what their favorite and least favorite thing is about learning how to write cursive. Another thing I may have a class do is have my students write a paragraph telling me what they would have done in Maggie's situation.

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A little girl named Maggie has just started the 3rd grade. She is very unexcited since she will have to learn how to write cursive. She believes that she does not need to learn cursive because she knows print and uses the computer. She refuses to learn cursive ad her teacher is clueless on how to

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get her to try. One day in class the teacher passes out sheet with each persons name so that they can practice their signatures, but Maggie doesn't know how to write cursive, so she ends up writing Muggie and gets coined the nickname of Muggie Maggie. Her teacher is out of ideas and come up with another monitor for the class, which is a letter monitor that Maggie gets put in charge of. She has to send letters to other teacher and bring them back, but when she tries to snoop it is in cursive and she can't read it, except for her name. This motivates her to finally learn cursive, so that she can read it.

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Muggie Maggie by Beverly Cleary is the story of a young girl in grade two who is about to learn cursive. As a result of her parents teasing she decides that she is not going to learn handwriting after all. The story is written at an early elementary level and details the efforts of her parents and

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teachers to get her to learn cursive. Throughout the story, when things are in cursive they appear that way in the story which is a unique way of encouraging the readers themselves to learn cursive. There are several illustrations throughout the chapters that give you an idea of what the characters look like. Despite any unique touches the writer has added, the story is still poor. The plot is unexciting and simple with the author taking on a didactic tone at points. I would not recommend this title.

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Maggie Schultz is starting third-grade, and after some teasing by her parents, she decides that she will not learn cursive. However, what starts more as a dare turns complicated when Maggie (who is normally a good student) realizes that she cannot read cursive, and her classmates are making fun of

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her. Just as Maggie is not sure how she will get out of her self-caused predicament without losing face, her teacher comes up with a clever way of having her learn cursive without confronting Maggie directly about it, or causing embarrassment to her.

This short book is cleverly written because it is about learning to read and write cursive (or rather not to want to do it), and since there is cursive writing in the book, that actually encourages readers to learn how to read cursive. The “third-grade girl” of the dedication (see “Common Knowledge”) got the book she was asking for. The decision Maggie makes at the beginning of the book, and the difficulties that ensue for her (and her parents and teacher) are realistically portrayed, and young readers will find in Maggie an authentic character they can identify with. They will also empathize with her struggles to learn cursive when she has finally understood the importance of it. The illustrations are not the best around, but they do give specific ideas about what the characters look like (at least, from the illustrator’s point of view), and they depict scenes from the book, which can help with comprehension if needed.

Recommended for grades 3 (or any grade that children start learning cursive writing) to 5.

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A cute little quick read, an inspiration to third-graders... all these describe the book Muggie Maggie.

Maggie's class is learning cursive and Maggie just doesn't see the point. When her teacher points out that her name looks like "Muggie" when she writes it, Maggie decides she will never learn cursive...after all, what is the point when she can write and read in printing?

Cute story, though do would

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this generation of non-cursive writers get it? Sad, but true. It reminded me of an Andrew Clements book.

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Huge Beverly Cleary fan but I did not think this was one of her best BUT when I read this to my daughter and finished the last page the first thing she said was "Can you read it again"....Nuff Said!

Maggie is eight, and excited about third grade...why does she have to learn to write in cursive?

This is a short but fun book about a contrary student.

I read this aloud to my 2nd graders. They are excited over the prospect of learning cursive next year. It's a Beverly Cleary book I had never read before.