The brainlessness of an English Tutor. Fuming

Ah to be 12 and discovering Jilly Cooper for the first time again.

also remember when Judy Blume’s Forever was banned from the school library.

No, but there’s nothing stopping people going to different sections. You also wouldn’t find true crime next to a Mills & Boon.

I studied The Bloody Chamber at GCSE and survived it. I have a copy of it next to my bed currently 😂

Your DD sounds a bit sensitive and you sound as your username suggests.

You seemed quite normal and calm and then the last paragraph was like you'd had a personality transplant. Give your head a wobble it's not a big deal

Batshit.

well I don’t think you’d find fifty shades of grey or a Steven king novel next to the little mermaid in a library 🤦‍♀️

Lots of children who enjoy reading , take out and read books from the adult library.
Reading a book for a 14 yr old when one is 12 is hardly a stretch.

YABU.

Wow! Are you okay?

We read The Catcher in the Rye at 12, its recommended for 14+ and a GCSE text, but covers much adult content -- oh well, life goes on!

I'd be much more concerned about what your child is exposed to online rather than in the classroom.

When I was a teenage boy in the 80's the most excitement we got outside of reading books was looking up dirty words in the big dictionary in the library or spelling boobs on our calculators, a changed world.

My whole class read Animal Farm in Primary School

Apparently Boxer being taken off to the glue factory is tear-jerker. But yes, it would help if those so upset by a book would be more precise.

@Phthia Teachers don't use 'that mum' as a threat. Who on earth would they be threatening? But they might well tell their colleagues to tread carefully around a mum that uses aggressive language, just in case.

First of all, it's not only teachers who say this. Secondly, in the case of the OP, badge of of honour hardly applies, not least because they offer partial information that has stunted debate, and for someone who apparently values language, is happy to want call a teacher a cunt on the basis of a conversation they weren't in on.

I’ve taught for 35 years and never heard the phrase ‘that mum’ or ‘that parent’ used by teachers. It’s a MN construct.

This thread is fantastically batshit. The headcanon rewrite of the end of TKAM; the oblique references to half-remembered books which no-one bothers to name but multiple people feel obliged to guess; and best of all, the novel at the centre of it all being written by that bloke from McFly and his wife off the CBeebies Baby Club.

10/10, no notes.

I wish teachers would realise that calling a parent "that mum" or "that parent" is not the threat they think it is. Indeed, in some contexts - for example parents fighting for provision for their children's learning difficulties, or standing up against bullies - it can become a badge of honour.

"James Herbert The rats..."

OMG, that has just brought back so many memories. I remember reading both that book and The Fog when I was about 14 or 15 in the late 1970s.

The other two books you mentioned weren't published until later. Do you mean Rivals by Jilly Cooper? That wasn't even published until 1988.

I read Animal Farm. I have no idea why you would be upset by that book.

Thanks for this. I have a 13yo avid reader and I was going to move him on as he's at that difficult in between age. Can you give an idea of books or series that are inappropriate for younger readers.
That said, we passed around Forever (Judy blume) at 12, and hid it under our pillows!!

As an English teacher I wonder whether the discussion was about the age rating. I can imagine saying something like 'films have absolute ratings and you aren't allowed to watch if the age is higher than yours, but books have recommendations, not ratings as it's only words not images, so our own experience and imagination can protect us a bit'. Or similar argument to that effect.

Most of the books everyone’s mentioning I have read and loved. All the nuclear fall out and sci-fi ones, just excellent as they make you stop and think. As for burning the books in Fahrenheit 451 that’s what we all want to avoid as books are wonderous.

And as for history and the holocaust of course we need to read and see those images as teens to make us understand what happened and for it to never happen again. I visited the graveyards in France with my school as a teenager, I will never forget all those graves.

IMHO a lot of the banned books everyone should read, especially teens.

as for this one, eve of man, I have never heard of it. I’ve borrowed it as an ebook from the library now and going to read it. I can’t possibly think what could be wrong with it.

i am in my 50s now and without being able to escape to other worlds in books I’d never have got through my childhood.

I am close to emailing said teacher calling her a ct,

Were I still teaching then my reply would be Takes one to know one.
Parents need to concentrate on their children's well-being instead of wasting teachers' time with petty emails. They should not have a teacher's email at all, if they have a complaint then go through the proper channels, the Head.

Was it "Z for Zachariah"? That's post-nuclear war and there's an attempted sexual assault in it.

Is it on the curriculum, or is it a reading book set to your DD ? Wondering why the fuck the McFly guy would be in the curriculum...

What is it about the book that made her uncomfortable?

Perhaps "On the Beach" by Nevil Shute? I don't remember a rape but I was 14 when we had to read it (45 years ago) so the memory isn't quite there.