Dear teachers,
Spelling Bee fever is upon us. 🐝 Some of your students are mugging for it. You’re keen to support them but don’t know how.
Fret not. I’m here to support you with curated book recommendations. All books will be related to the theme of Spelling Bee.
The first book is “The Big Spell Off” by Adeline Foo. Some of your students would be familiar with her because they could have read “The Diary of Amos Lee” in primary school.

The main character is Whoopie Lee and she has a problem. She wants to join the National Spelling Championship but her best friend, Morticia, wants to join too and asks her to prepare her for it. So, Whoopie is forced to compile lists of words that may appear in the Spelling Championship for Morticia but won’t get to give the competition a shot. Sounds like she’s working very hard but not getting anything in return.
Whoopie is 10, so your students may consider this a “baby book”. They aren’t wrong, but given that Adeline pushes her plot forward with text messages and Facebook status updates, coupled with WORDS TYPED IN ALL CAPS, it’s a breeze to read this book. Plus, Whoopie’s struggle to rein in her feelings of jealousy while trying to support Morticia are surely relatable to all of us, regardless of the generation we come from.
Relating back to the Spelling Bee, this book is an invaluable resource for several reasons. First, Whoopie conscientiously records down commonly misspelt words in alphabetical order. Plus, did you that the names of animals were derived from the Malay language? I didn’t know that either until I read this book. As a linguistics major, I was drawn to the list of words that were invented by Shakespeare but prehistory enthusiasts would be appealed to the dinosaur references.
“The Big Spell Off” can be borrowed from the National Library Board. Or you can borrow my personal copy for your student. First come first served!