to think a school librarian should have heard of Wolf Hall and actually read books?

This person is probably not a librarian ( as has been said to you about 1000 times already) Librarians hardly exist anymore in school libraries in particular. It is a highly skilled postgraduate level profession. In any case, you don't actually know whether what you were told is true. You don't know this person. You don't know if your friend has an axe to grind, whether this person applied for a job in a school and was told to sit in the library as part of her job, or even if they jokingly said ' I hate books!' Or even if they said it to piss your friend off because they were being sanctimonious and patronising to another member of staff.

This thread is just more confirmation of how bad, how narrow, modern education is. “I didn’t hear about it at school” therefore I can’t be expected to know about it, despite being an English teacher with an English degree (presumably hasn’t been in a branch of Waterstones for the last 20 years either).

@Bogginsthe3rd - from Wikipedia
^*
Wolf Hall* is a British television series adaptation of two of Hilary Mantel's novels, Wolf Halll[1] and Bring Up the Bodiess^,[2] a fictionalised biography documenting the life of Thomas Cromwell.

Especially since it’s been a major TV series, and the author was very well known, yes, I’d be very surprised if any librarian hadn’t even heard of Wolf Hall.

Many library staff these days are assistants and paid minimum wage. The de-professionalisation of many jobs probably came to library work quite early. At least it isn't a life or death occupation.

So you’re saying don’t give kids exposure to things other than books, allow them no life experiences? What could possibly go wrong there 🙄

Being told which books we should know of is rather high-handed and arrogant.
Could you list all of Shakespear's works?
As another pp noted, repeating what a friend of a friend says and then asserting that someone SHOULD have heard of a book is nonsense.

I don’t know how to answer what I don’t know. No one at school recommended it to me when it came out. I don’t know where the interviews were that were mentioned above, but I wasn’t watching author interviews at that age. The first Booker that I think I can remember reading was The Sellout, so I must have got an interest around that age. I’ve really never heard anyone recommending it, and even doing a quick google this morning, it’s not making me think it’s as big as being made out on here (the reviews seem quite mixed?) and no one during my adult life has recommended it. I’ve maybe picked it up at some point, and put it back down as it doesn’t interest me. I have heard of Bring Up the Bodies now that I’m googling, I think I’ll have been interested in that title but then again lost interest when reading the blurb.

Anyways, now I can say I’ve heard of it, so I’m sure I can quell those parental complaints that I may have otherwise been inundated with.

So how have you not heard of - not read, but heard of - Wolf Hall, one of the acknowledged masterpieces of this century?

I do, so you’d be happy.

You're an English teacher - I'd hope you read a lot!

I'd also hope you had at least some kind of interest in literary fiction.

Reading anything is better than nothing is fine at the start of a reluctant readers journey. But it’s a very low bar once you’re past that.
Making recommendations within YA isn’t that hard, Amazon’s algorithm can do that. Taking them out of YA and introducing them to something new - that’s what I’d like to see librarians do. Stepping it up a level.

I read recently that Jeff Kinney is the most borrowed author in secondary schools. Jeff Kinney is on a level a Year 4 or 5 can enjoy, and there’s zero progression. I don’t think there’s anything to celebrate in secondary school kids reading his books.

Wolf Hall wasn't 'just one book'. It was a phenomenon in the literary world. Hilary Mantel was interviewed everywhere. Not having heard of Wolf Hall is like being an English teacher who's never heard of George or TS Eliot.

I'm so bloody glad to have grown up in the days when teachers were permitted to talk about the things they were passionate about, and to have had teachers who loved literature and passed it on to me.

The way teaching is at the moment, I imagine parents are delighted that I have an English degree and a teaching qualification and get excellent GCSE results. I doubt many would be bothered that I’ve not heard of one particular book. I read plenty.

I would much rather the ‘librarian’ (as in member of staff who works in the library) in my kids school knew the books that kids actually want to read like Heartstopper and make appropriate recommendations and suggestions based on that, rather than know nothing about Heartstopper but be able to speak knowledgeably about Wolf Hall and Booker prize winners.

I’m also of the opinion that reading something is better than reading nothing. I don’t care if it’s David Walliams or Ulysis, Hilary Mantell or Jeff Kinney. The best way to stop kids reading is to make them read something they’ve zero interest in.

I hope you don't teach Pluvia's children!

Too right! If I had children of school age I'd want them stretched and encouraged to try reading all kinds of things, not just handed dreadful YF books. That would be like bringing a child up on a diet of fast food.

At 16 I was reading the English and foreign classics (in translation) voluntarily, and being inspired by my English teacher and a couple of librarians in my local library who had a love of books to range ever further. I'm immensely grateful to them. Good literature has been a cornerstone of my life, a consolation and an inspiration, a gateway to wider arts and culture, history and understanding of other societies and ways of thinking. Incurious adults shouldn't be teaching.

Hmm I'm pretty sure

I hope you don't teach @Pluvia's children!

If you were my child's teacher and you revealed that you had never heard of Mantel or Wolf Hall I'd be asking questions at the school.

This is, hands down, my favourite Mumsnet comment ever. I'd quite like it framed on my wall.

Oh god, I actually am genuine and feeling like I’ve had some sort of stroke where I’ve forgotten something really important 😂 Don’t worry, I don’t teach A level lit and my degree is in language and not literature.

I'm surprised people haven't heard of Wolf Hall,because you couldn't get away from it or the TV adaptation at one point. I have actively chosen not yo read it, because I had enough of all the bloody Thomases at A-level and degree.

No one will have read everything, though. What I would like from someone working in a school library is where to look things up. There are websites where you can get recommendations for books that are similar, so even if you don't know, you can look it up. We had a printed out binding of something like that back in my library days, too, so it's not a new idea.

I'd also expect someone working in a library to keep half an eye on book reviews and best seller lists. You can't read everything, but you can get a fair idea of what everyone else is reading, and what some people think of those books.

Yep, when the mayor ascended. But at least our heroes saved the books from being burned when MOO got involved...

Wasn’t Principal Snyder killed by a giant snake? Shows what happens if you try to censor students’ reading material.

Sadly, not as rare as you'd think? Whilst working as a TA in a secondary school (but have an English Literature degree) it gradually dawned on me that the English teacher taking the lesson didn't know there were 3 published Bronte sisters.

I had a quiet word with them after the lesson and apparently they had never heard of Anne Bronte! How? How???