Study finds Mr Greedy rivals Grapes of Wrath in reading complexity

Analysis for teaching resources body determines that Roger Hargreaves’ use of unusual words and long sentences raises demands on the reader

One of them is a Pulitzer prize-winning epic running to more than 500 pages and detailing the hardships of a family of tenant farmers during the US’s Great Depression, the other is a 36-page picture book about a pink blob with an insatiable appetite.

But in a study measuring language difficulty, statisticians have analysed the text of more than 33,000 books and determined that the language used in Roger Hargreaves’s Mr Men title Mr Greedy is only marginally less complex than that used in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

Gulliver’s Travels (Unabridged) by Jonathan Swift – BL. 13.5

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