![]() ![]() For Ally, to do her best is to be told that she isn’t trying, she’s too messy, and she’s a careless speller. On the first page Ally is asked to write a few paragraphs about herself, which sounds like an easy enough task for most sixth graders. Hunt captures the inner confusion and feeling that you aren’t getting something everyone else grasps easily that is a pre-diagnosed dyslexic’s life. ![]() When it was my turn I could rattle off the first ten or even twenty. As the other students in my group read efficiently, I would listen and try to memorize the words as they spoke. ![]() For me it might as well have been the directions to hell. I hated that list with all my heart-it contained words that every first grader was supposed to be able to read. I can recall with absolute clarity standing in front of my first-grade teacher’s desk, looking over the faces of my classmates at a list of words taped to the far wall. Decades have passed for me, but the description of Ally Nickerson’s feelings as her teacher encourages her to try to write a page flooded me with the memory of soul-cringing embarrassment. As I read the beginning of Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt, I had a nasty bout of déjà vu. ![]()
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