Anne Fine was and still is one of my favourite children’s authors. Her most famous book would be Madam Doubtfire, which most people will know as the popular film Ms. Doubtfire. Charm School is a book for children aged 9/10+, more probably girls as it is very as the name suggests set one Saturday in a school for ‘charming girls.’ I found this book original and humorous, it has a lot of unexpected parts to it and it is not what you would expect which will be interesting for children reading as it will keep them engaged.Bonny, the main character has just moved house and knows no body, worse still she is made go to charm school while her mother takes an accounting class. This is the last place tomboy Bonny wants to be and it is an interesting day for her. We are introduced to the girls each as competitive and occasionally spiteful as the girl before. Bonny tries to teach them a lesson for being self-obsessed and nasty in order to win the highly coveted ‘Glistering Tiara’ in the annual crowing of Miss Supreme Queen. Safe to say they eventually learn a lot from each other and Bonny even leaves with some friends after she tries to sabotage the whole pageant.This book could be successfully used in English. It has excellent examples of character writing. It could be effectively used to explore character descriptions as the examples in the book are very detailed and show a depth beyond just physical descriptions. It is also a good book to challenge misconceptions about what people are like from their physical appearance which is such a prevalent issue for older children especially as they are getting ready to move to a new school. Thus it could also be used to address those issues that young girls have and to show that everyone is different and that it is normal.
I love this book! I must have read it like 50 times by now ^-^ I love being girly so I'd love to go to charm school but I get why Bonnie might not want to. After all, not everyone likes pink and cute things. I like that Bonnie tells the other girls that they can have fun and don't always have to be perfect - especially that they can eat the nice things they named themselves after. I think that's an immportant message - I think teenagers are told what we shouldn't eat too often (haha, off I go again. gomen!). Anyway, I would recommend this book to anyone in the preteen/young teen age group. It's silly and fun for older girls too.
