The brainlessness of an English Tutor. Fuming

It’s actually really important for children’s development for them to read books with dark/challenging themes.

For most children, their first experiences of death, of sadness, of injustice, of romantic love etc - big, grown up emotions - will come to them through the relative safe space of the pages of a book. Whether that’s Goodnight, Mog as a toddler or Harry Potter’s parents in the Philosopher’s Stone.

Letting children learn about those things through the filter of books is a brilliant way to prepare them for what is to come to them in life in a way they are able to emotionally and intellectually process.

And yes, sometimes books SHOULD make us feel uncomfortable - challenge our prejudices, or warn us of what could be if we don’t do better.

By effectively enacting censorship on your DD you are doing her a disservice. Have you read the book? I’m assuming from your disproportionate reaction that you have not. An intelligent way to tackle it would be to read the book yourself and have a conversation with your DD about what the aspects were that made her feel uneasy and why that might be. Not to fly off the handle and call the teacher a cunt.

We have expressed concerns of the language and content of shone of the novels the examination board wants
GCSE students to read. They just dismissed us, saying here were 40 odd other books to choose from. Though the list of texts are dire!

Given the OP's 2nd post, it looks like her DD is uncomfortable with it because of the passages with some sexual references, not because she's offended by the vocabulary.
The book blurb essentially says it is a "love story" about the last girl on Earth and the quest of who she should breed with to ensure humanity's survival.
The OP's daughter is 12. If she's still uncomfortable with that stuff at her age, I think the teachers should be sympathetic to that, really.

The thing I am most shocked about here is that a book by Giovanna and Tom Fletcher is being read at school!

I am going to post in support of you, OP, because I started a thread recently about a problem with a teacher and I was mown down by offensive and unnecessary posts. It seems the many of the less helpful posters on MN are VERY vocal when it comes to this sort of thing!

It also drives me insane that people think that "just words" can't touch a child, can't be damaging, can't linger on their minds just as a violent film can. Books are read alone, and the subject matter is taken right into the imagination - so it is like watching an age inappropriate film, whether extreme violence or explicit sex or anything else, on your own, without anyone realising it has happened. Of course it is going to be damaging and of course it isn't "just words".

The world is full of amazing literature, enduring classics, beautiful prose - why give a child a halfbaked book aimed at older children?

The book itself has had a lot of negative reviews - one review says (am I allowed to quote this? I thought it was well put):

"Our main character is [...] breathtakingly beautiful. There's nothing wrong with that, but the disturbing side effect of the world [ ] is that every man on the planet is uncontrollably lusting after her, and this hints at a constant underlying threat of sexual violence. Honestly, the majority of the male characters just about go insane with lust when they even see a glimpse of a woman, be it real or a hologram. The men in Eve's universe are driven by their hormones, and only their good, virtuous nature stops them from taking advantage of her. This suggests that if any were actually to assault Eve, it wouldn't really be their fault because they are simply acting out their biological urges. That is such a creepy message to let go under the radar in a [ ] book that I was really taken aback by it. Even though Eve's romantic interest [ ] is all around sweet and respectful towards her, he treats the other men's lecherous behaviour either as a joke or as a minor annoyance and never speaks out to challenge their views.

Another thing that irritated me about Bram was how obsessed he is with physical strength and how he looks down on anyone less fit than him. He constantly jokes at the expense of an overweight man he meets later in the story and also makes some condescending remarks about his best friend. I would be fine with this if it was treated as a character flaw, but the way it is written invites the reader to laugh at these characters with him. I didn't join in because I don't find "haha, he's so fat!!!" to be particularly witty or funny."

I can't believe an English tutor would say "it is just words". The world has gone mad, we all know that.

I can't believe that posters think that the OP might have been homophobic or something. It implies that however adult a book is, if it has LGBT+ subject matter all children must read it and no parent are allowed to say "but it is not age appropriate" even if it most certainly is about and aimed at older teens. Crazy agenda aimed at creating mental health problems maybe.

I don't think YA should be aimed at 12 year olds. A 12 year old is not a young adult, far from it. An 18 year old is a young adult. 12 - 18 is older child. I wish the government would get input from professionals with expertise around child development to decide on age ratings.

I loved Stephen King aged 12. I'd read the sex scenes over and over. 🤷

I think being an English teacher now must be a nightmare. From 12 onwards we read books aimed at adults because there was no YA. The books the teachers chose for us in school often scared, enlightened and upset me but I learned so much from them. Nowadays kids are allowed to view all kinds of awful stuff online but parents are making a daft fuss about books. World's gone nuts.

Getting Anne from Motherland vibes here. She didn’t go canoeing with her son Darius because he was a bit uncomfortable with the phrase “Eskimo roll”.

You're not being unreasonable OP. Going by the thread some people seem to think young people should be forced to read anything because A. It's just words so they shouldn't feel anything. Or B. They'll feel uncomfortable emotions and come out the end of it resilient improved humans.
They are only in school a short period of time, and there are some many amazing books they could be exposed to I think it's ok to question what they are given. Critical thinking is a good skill to learn too

Indeed. It's startling just how many posters haven't grasped the point in the slightest.

Which books are these?

I saw the first page of responses and the burning question of ‘what book’. As if that was the significant fact. It’s not.

It was the tutor’s response to your DD, in effect gaslighting her. Bordering on ridiculing her reaction. I’d have the same response as you. Her response is trying to shame your DD and shame is the very antithesis of effective teaching. There’s nothing so damaging to the delicate process of learning as shame yet so many teachers fall back on it as a tool to control students.

Btw, loved your initial response to see if she agrees those were ‘just words’.

And what was her response @coffeeAndasandwich ?

LET'S AGREE TO DISAGREE MRS .

I mean, that is a terrible book that the Holocaust Trust warns against because it perpetuates extremely dangerous myths about the Holocaust.

For starters, there were no children living in the death camps, because they were gassed on arrival. So little Bruno would never have met little Shmuel.

There's also a child in it where its heavily implied has been sexually abused by a family member. A rape trial. A murder. Attempted lynching. Probably more but I forget!

English teacher is probably trying to help your kid process what they’ve read that has made them feel uncomfortable. You need to sit down and shut up.

I observed that when my daughter was 8, the fucking brainless ta was giving her books about slang, gangs of boys going around, breaking windows, making dirty to each other, all this disguised as cool. I bore only two of these shitty books and went and personally opened the book to the headmistress and said: WHAT IS THIS?!

You sound like an absolute dick - as if teachers don't have enough to do without dealing with parents whose kids feel uncomfortable with things they read in school - maybe it was an opportunity to discuss those things with your daughter. As it was, she was told she didn't need to read the book. Imagine them trying to find something if every parent/child was like you. You sound very much like you are that parent.

There's no explicit description of rape.
I don't see why racial slurs are a problem in a book that is anti-racist (except in the case of the autistic girl being afraid of being seen reading it).

Has nobody ever told a child who was scared by a movie or tv programme that it’s just pictures and images in a tv? Unless there’s a backstory, I assume that the form tutor was trying to minimise the power of the words to reassure your dd. Words can be powerful but unless you know otherwise, it was probably a clumsy attempt to calm her down.

You are totally “that mum” getting so angry about a book that is free reading. If your dd isn’t confident enough to say that she wasn’t keen, then I would have sent a note saying so. 🤷‍♀️

I think that there’s themes that people may not want to read about because of what may have happened in their life. For example a child who has a close family with cancer, may understandably want to avoid a book with death or terminal illness as a theme.

The wrongly accused character Tom, is shot dead in the end.

Aside from that though, there are a lot of racial slurs and rape references, which some people might find hard to read.

Thank you. It's worth having a nightmare over.

Yeah me too. I'm a bit shocked someone thought that was an appropriate thing to say, when threads about fucking big spiders have a TW.

I meant the words can play on your mind and emotions. Like the pp book description that got removed; that will be in my head for weeks bothering me 😕