Anita and Me
Meera Syal
Nine-year-old Meena Kumar is the daughter of the only Punjabi family in Tollington, a small former mining village near Wolverhampton in the early 1970s. She tells fibs, longs to belong, and wants more than anything to be friends with Anita Rutter, the loud, bold older girl who rules the village's children.
- Length
- About 95,000 words
- To read it
- About 64 days
- Stage
- GCSE
Reading time at 1,500 words a day, the pace we start from until we know your child’s own.
Where it is taught
Why Anita and Me is on the list
- Year 10, Stretch. A step up in length or difficulty, for a confident reader. GCSE modern text (AQA, Edexcel).
- Year 11, Stretch. A step up in length or difficulty, for a confident reader. GCSE modern text (AQA, Edexcel).
Reading it here
What your child does with it
- 1
Choose it and set a finish date
You get a suggested target from the length of the book and your child's reading pace.
- 2
Check in along the way
A longer book has short check-ins every week or two, so it keeps moving and nothing is forgotten.
- 3
Answer two questions
When they finish: a review of the book, and a deeper question about how it works.
- 4
Get it marked, and redraft
Every answer is marked against the rubric for their year, with a reason for every score.