Do you think they will ever update the Biff Chip Kipper etc books?

[strandednomore]

Have just been reading one of the Biff and Kipper etc books with dd1 (who is at home with chicken pox) and in it they go to London with Gran, see someone who looks suspiciously like Margaret Thatcher but who my dd decided was the Queen pass by in her car and then have an "incident" with waxwork models including Princess Di. I haven't bothered explaining to dd who Princess Di was (I had enough problems with Nelson) but wondered whether they were ever going to update these books with some more, err, contemporary characters?

Incidentally, for anyone who has finally got the end of this series, do they conclude like the end of the Harry Potter novels? Does Wilma marry Kipper? Do any of them drop out of uni?

(clearly I am bored and spending too much time at home on my own with small children)

[PandaNot]

They probably will update them at some point. I remember being very excited as a teacher when they finally updated the Ginn 360 scheme - unfortunately it was still the same, boring sentences but at least the pictures gave me something new to look at!

[AyesToTheRight]

There's some new ones aren't there? Chapter book type I think

[AyesToTheRight]

They're called Time Chronicles I think although the ORT website suggests they are "coming in September 2010" which isn't too helpful.

[strandednomore]

Hmmm Time Chronicles sounds a little too like Magic Glowing Key to me...(although is obviously a very clever way to allow their horizons to expand beyond their homes/schools etc and therefore introduce lots of important new words like Vikings and Victorians....)

[AyesToTheRight]

Here they are :)

[AyesToTheRight]

There are other ones in the normal series with Vikings and Victorians as well

[strandednomore]

Yes - we've just done the Vikings one and about to do a Victorian one. It just makes me laugh that the writers were obviously at a loss as to how to introduce some new words/concepts and then someone came up with the great idea of introducing a...glowing key...which shrinks them all....and sends them on an adventure through their dolls house....

[LapsedPacifist]

I think they should bring back Janet and John. Mummy in a pinny and Daddy smoking a pipe doing manly stuff with wood.

[2BoysTooLoud]

Hey don't knock 'The magic key' books standednomore!
My ds loved them. [Also enjoyed 'The Time Chronicles' which are very linked to the magic key books/ a continuation].
Op there is an ORT book that has a picture of Margaret Thatcher in - 'The secret plans' I think.

[ASByatt]

I doubt that they'll keep the content and update the pictures, as the Biff and Chip etc etc books are out of line with the approach to early literacy that schools are now supposed to be following, so really schools should be phasing out their use at all........

[piprabbit]

I always laugh when I come across the bit where Naseem takes his computer round to the children's house... and he takes his entire tower system, separate keyboard and screen.

[SuePurblybilt]

I think they should update them to show how they've grown up. Show Mouse's name badge from Asda (makes life difficult being called Mouse and working on the deli counter. Nightmare when tannoy-called) and Chipper's ASBO.

Floppy could be there, back legs replaced by wheels and grey of muzzle. Mum could have been Gok'd and finally ditched the tracksuits.

By the sounds of it, Naseem has a future as a computer hacker. That's topical. I also feel that Kipper may be gay.

[BawbagBiggins]

My 4 year old told me the other day that Kipper is actually called Christopher, but had problems pronouncing his own name...hence Kipper!


Doesn't explain why the other two have crazy names though

[strandednomore]

I know - who is called Biff for god's sake!

[strandednomore]

(was there a character in Back to the Future called Biff?)

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

Biff is really Barbara. Can't remember what Chip is short for.

Their house has a huge brown box of a TV with an aerial on top, a video recorder and they take their camera film to the chemist to be developed. How quaint!

[BusterGut]

I think you'll find that the updated version is actually PROJECT X (which is so pc it turns my stomach!)

[pinkgirlythoughts]

I remember chuckling at the one where they take photos of their magic adventure then realise there's no film in the camera.... then had to try to explain to my group six year olds what a 'film' for a camera was, and how you had to 'get it developed!'

[stromnessdundee]

My dd came home with a Ginn 360 book today- it made a nice change from the ORT! We live abroad and the School tends to have an eclectic collection of books. I am of the opinion that the readers should have a layer of meaning known only to parents- it would make them a lot more interesting.

[Diddee]

All of the ORT books have been updated, the Maggie Thatcher / Princess Di one must just be an old copy. I guess it is up to the individual schools as to how often they update their copies. Project x is aimed at boys I think - well those who find Biff and Chip boring.

[ithoughtthiswasoriginal]

My DS2 has adhd (and a wicked but inappropriate sense of humour) has been known to call them Bitch, Crap and Fucker. Having spent the last 15 years reading the bloody things I am inclined to agree.

[Parasaurolophus]

We read those books and wait for the line "Kipper was fed up."

Someone is always "fed up" in those books. The same is true for our school's series about Mo and Sam. I guess "fed up" is just such a great phonetic representation of feelings the authors can't help themselves. Or, the authors all have a drinking game about how to get "fed up" in their stories.

I don't know anyone IRL who gets "fed up."

[PorkChopSter]

I do.

I get fed up of reading Biff and Chipper. I get fed up of the magic key and and I get fed up of its tortuous use into some crappy make believe world. I wish to ram the magic key up Floppy's arse and then poke Chipper in the eye with it.

[lostlady]

Oo, ASByatt, a spark of hope-,was thinking of Home Ed'ing my three year old to make sure no more Biff et al- are they really out of step and due to be got rid of?? Am excited now! They are spool dull, I am not surprised literacy levels so poor

[simpson]

Totally PMSL at "bitch, crapper & fucker"

DS (yr2 has just started reading the Time Chronicles ones.

DD 3) has just started to learn the characters for ORT so looks like I have to go through the whole lot again

Think we should write our own older version of ORT. ie Kipper definately gay (as mentioned earlier)

Did PMSL at a book DS brought home last yr (yr1) about a horse or donkey (I forget which who was given too many rotten apples and got drunk

It was in the magic key series I think....