Homeschool Reading · Literature

A Little Princess

by Frances Hodgson Burnett · a homeschool reading guide

Best for

Grades 4–6 (from the author of The Secret Garden)

Reading level

870L Lexile® measure

Subject

Literature (classic · riches to rags)

On Chalky

12 modules with personalized comprehension questions

Use this book for

• Literature (core): Burnett's 1905 classic — a fortune lost, an attic gained, and a heroine who decides that being a princess is conduct, not circumstance. Character tested by reversal, chapter after chapter.
• Reading skills (core): Comprehension at a Victorian register: longer sentences, formal dialogue, and a plot that turns on information the reader holds before the characters do.
• Character & discussion (tie-in): Sara feeds a hungrier child on her own worst day. Whether kindness that costs something is worth more than kindness that doesn't — the book stakes its answer plainly.
• History & geography (tie-in): Colonial India, London boarding schools, diamond mines, and the gulf between scullery and parlour — the Victorian world arrives whole, and invites its own questions.

The book

Sara Crewe arrives at Miss Minchin's London seminary as its richest pupil — doted on, French-speaking, and generous — until the day word comes that her father is dead, the fortune is gone, and her room is now in the attic.

Frances Hodgson Burnett published A Little Princess in 1905, and it remains the definitive riches-to-rags story because the reversal tests exactly the thing the title claims: Sara has told the little ones she is a princess inside, and the attic years — cold, hunger, Miss Minchin's spite — put the claim on trial. Her weapons are imagination (the attic becomes the Bastille; she, its prisoner) and stubborn courtesy, and the famous bun-shop scene, where a starving Sara gives five of six buns to a hungrier beggar child, is one of the great moral set pieces in children's fiction. The rescue, when it comes through the wall, is pure story-magic — earned by everything before it.

Why homeschoolers reach for it

• Character proved under pressure. Rich Sara is kind; the question is whether cold, hungry Sara stays kind. Watching the answer arrive scene by scene is theme study with real suspense in it.
• Imagination as survival equipment. Sara's pretending is not escapism — it is how she keeps her dignity alive in an attic. Children who narrate their own worlds recognise the tool immediately.
• A Victorian on-ramp. At 870L with period diction, it stretches readers toward the classics shelf — and pairs perfectly with The Secret Garden for an author study.
• The bun-shop scene. Six buns, five given away. Read it, then talk about it — it is the rare page that makes generosity feel like the adventure it is.

Reading skills it builds

On Chalky, every module ends with comprehension questions written from the book's own text, each exercising a specific skill aligned to the Common Core reading standards for grade 4.

• Evidence-based analysis (CCSS RL.4.1): Is Sara still a princess in the attic? Cite her conduct
• Theme & objective summary (CCSS RL.4.2): What 'princess' means by the last chapter — said plainly
• Narrative element analysis (CCSS RL.4.3): Sara, Becky, Miss Minchin — kindness, loyalty, and their opposite
• Vocabulary & word impact (CCSS RL.4.4): 'Seminary', 'scullery' — the Victorian ladder in two words
• Text structure & development (CCSS RL.4.5): The magic through the wall — how the rescue is planted early
• Point of view & perspective (CCSS RL.4.6): Sara as Miss Minchin sees her, and as Becky does

If your state asks you to document reading instruction, this is the record: which book, which skills, which standard each aligns with, kept automatically as your child reads.

Running it as a unit

On Chalky, A Little Princess runs twelve modules — about two weeks at 20 minutes a day, open-and-go: the modules are already sequenced, so there is nothing to plan the night before. It sits well beside the grade 4 reading plan. A rhythm, not a rulebook:

1. Week 1 — the fall. A module a day through the birthday and the news. Start the princess test: each chapter, one line — did Sara's conduct hold? The test is the theme, kept honestly.
2. Week 2 — the attic and the magic. Finish the modules. At the bun shop, stop and count the cost out loud. Then watch the rescue assemble itself through the wall — and find where Burnett planted it chapters earlier.
3. Close — the definition. 'A princess is —' Have your child finish the sentence the way the book would, then the way they would. The difference between circumstances and conduct is the conversation, and it is yours.

Pairs well with

• The Secret Garden — 700L · Burnett's other locked-away child
• Esperanza Rising — 750L · riches to rags, a century closer
• Anne of Green Gables — 970L · another imagination that furnishes bare rooms

Start your reading comprehension curriculum on Chalky

Standards references describe alignment with the Common Core State Standards for Reading, grade 4; homeschool requirements vary by state, and this page is a record of instruction, not legal advice.