76 pages • 2 hours read
How To Eat Fried Worms
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1973
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Introduction
How to Eat Fried Worms
- Genre: Fiction; middle grade humor
- Originally Published: 1973
- Reading Level/Interest: Lexile 560L; grades 3-7
- Structure/Length: 41 chapters; approx. 118 pages; approx. 1 hour, 50 minutes on audio
- Protagonist and Central Conflict: Billy needs a new minibike, so he accepts a $50 bet from his friend Alan to eat 15 worms in 15 days.
- Potential Sensitivity Issues: Name-calling; outdated language/gender roles
Thomas Rockwell, Author
- Bio: Born in 1933; grew up in Arlington, Vermont, where he attended class in a one-room schoolhouse; son of painter Norman Rockwell; attended Bard College; currently lives in Poughkeepsie, New York
- Other Works: How to Fight a Girl (1987); How to Get Fabulously Rich (1990)
- Awards: The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor (1975); the California Young Reader Medal (1975); The Sequoyah Book Award (1976)
CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:
- Overcoming and Learning Through Challenges
- The Fine Line Between Honor and Cheating
- Parallels Between Life and War
STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:
- Gain an understanding of the authorial context regarding Thomas Rockwell that also informs the approach to childhood that Rockwell takes in the novel.
- Read paired texts and other brief resources to make connections via the text’s topics and themes, including Overcoming and Learning Through Challenges.
