Sheila McCullagh books-Griffin Pirates and Tim and the Hidden People

[RosieMBanks]

I found some of these books second-hand, and realise that they fetch high prices on Ebay, Amazon etc. I can see why! - they are really exciting series of school readers which obviously captured children's imaginations in the 1970s and 1980s. The books in each series follow on from each other, and I imagine children (and parents!) would have been really keen to read the books to find out what happened next. I can't help comparing them to the self-contained stories in the Oxford Reading Tree books and wonder why there is nothing similar around today? I quite like Biff, Chip & Co but the Magic Key adventures just don't compare with those of the pirates, and Tim and Tobias! Can any teachers advise?

[lovecheese]

Are you joking?! DD had some of the Griffins and we agreed they were awful, really archaic; She couldn't wait to finish them.

[Malaleuca]

I seem to remember that they were popular. They have also been reprinted, or at least some of them have, so can be bought more cheaply than the originals on ebay. I sometimes use them. Back in the 70s one of the main reading schemes was 'Janet and John' so after that you would be glad to read about pirates.