FOSTER GIRL'S REAL-LIFE MATILDA STORY Her Teacher Became Her Mom

LEXI MCCLELLAND REMEMBERS HOW QUICKLY HER STUDENT MARY STOOD OUT IN CLASS. WHEN THE 8-YEAR-OLD NEEDED SOMEONE TO STEP UP AFTER FOUR FOSTER HOMES, LEXI KNEW ‘IT WAS MEANT TO BE’

- ABIGAIL ADAMS

When second-grade teacher Lexi McClelland and 7-year-old Mary met in 2020, the student made quite the first impression: Mary entered McClelland’s book-lined classroom at Elm Tree Elementary in Bentonville, Ark., while singing her own name to the tune of John Cena’s WWE theme. “This girl is going to be hilarious,” McClelland, 30, remembers. She soon learned that Mary, then in her fourth foster home, was also a bright and creative “readaholic.” Really, says McClelland, she was a “dream.”

Less than two years later she and Mary went from teacher and student to mother and daughter, an adoption saga straight out of the pages of a kids’ book: Their community has compared the pair to bookish prodigy Matilda Wormwood and her kindhearted kindred spirit Miss Honey from the 1988 Roald Dahl classic Matilda, characters whom McClelland and Mary adore. “It made me feel honored,” says McClelland. “The only thing I can do is give all the credit to God, because He was with me throughout.”