Why on earth didn’t the librarian safeguard Matilda?

Why was Windy Miller allowed to work the mill when he was shitfaced most of the time? H&S nowhere to be seen

Ofsted would have had a field day at that school, children being locked in cupboards and force fed cake! As would the union with teachers working for free.

Absolutely and pretty much all the seven girls are clones of Anne, even Janet never tells her patronising brother to take a hike. Julian was always described as being big and muscular so he'd definitely be one of those rugby playing young Conservative types.

I've been around a fair few farmers in my time but have never yet met the stereotypical plump, ruddy faced farmers wife.

Peter is essentially Julian from the Famous Five, but with fewer opportunities for patronising rosy-cheeked farmers’ wives, village bobbies and villainous foreigners. They both grew up to be golf bores who vote UKIP.

Yes, I agree. Reepicheep, too, was 'serious' but comic.

This is why I much preferred the secret seven although reading them as an adult really shows up with a knobhead, jobsworth Peter was no far flung Islands or trekking half way across the country where there always happened to be a welcoming farmer (why wasn't he busy harvesting?) and his wife with food produce to give away.

Just a shed, a spaniel and an excessive amount of crimes that the inept police weren't able to solve themselves.

So much more realistic.

Incidentally, the whole “magic” thing spoiled the story for me, because I thought it could be a true story, until that happened.

Vicar of Dibley is highly separate from reality: the way she just turns up, to her open-mouthed congregation. When a church is “in vacancy” ie. has no vicar, the reality is a long selection process lasting weeks or months.

Don't forget Enid Blyton Adventures Series.... children going off by themselves and missing sometimes kidnapped for days! And nobody thinks to actually involve the police or have the parents declared unfit...

But I loved the books as a child!

I can't watch home alone for similar reasons. I think the police try knocking on the door once and then do nothing.

😀

I'm also pretty sure adoptions don't work like that

Plus all the magic

I was born in the mid 70s. I was walking home from school with my younger brother once we were at junior school. It was about 1.5 miles. At the weekend we'd be out all day, cycling for miles. We'd go to an animal sanctuary and pet the dogs, no one questioned why these young kids were out on their own. We'd built camps in the woods. Walk along the railway track. Nothing very exciting happened and we didn't come across anyone dodgy, thankfully. I'd take myself off to the swimming pool once I was over 8 and didn't need an adult with me.

My school was quite boring, no child beating or anyone locked in cupboards. Although shouty teachers weren't unusual.

What put a stop to our fun was the bypass that was built around town meaning there was no way to safely get to the countryside we used to roam.

I was always disappointed that none of these adventures and mysteries ever happened to me!

Because I need the story to happen

It’s horrifying isn’t it. I read it as when I was about ten, at almost exactly the time the Bulger case was all over the news, and always conflated the two in my head. Incredibly upsetting- I don’t think I’ve read it since.

Agreed. Quite how you send your child back after the snake only to hear about GIANT SPIDERS the year after baffles me. Like.. the snake wasn't bad enough?! Surely at some point you just think I don't want my baby eaten by a ginormous reptile/insect/dragon/ogre and start looking at homeschooling.. X

At least you knew that it was a bad idea to shut yourself inside a wardrobe, as CS Lewis repeatedly said so.

Incidentally, Matilda says that she thinks CS Lewis is a good writer, but there are no funny bits in his books. I don’t think that’s true at all - the Narnia books are filled with funny scenes. And who can forget Tom Baker as Puddleglum in 1990?

Coz it would have been a shit story if she had

Or were they just hiding something! 🧙

Actually the school inspector does come round to Danny's caravan and is told by the dad he's a qualified teacher and is home educating him.

In some circles, women used to wear white cotton gloves outside the house fairly commonly - in the same sort of situations that both men and women would wear hats.

I loved the book Danny the Champion of the World, especially:

• Mr hazell threatening Danny with a good hiding if he made finger marks on his Rolls Royce.
• The odd morality of poaching pheasants.
• The headmaster Mr Snoddy drinking alcohol in class (unthinkable now).
• The caning scene - I found that morbidly fascinating, and the fury of Danny’s father, and Danny has to talk him out of beating the daylights out of the teacher who did it.
• The farcical scenes involving the vicar’s wife, the giant pram, the pheasants, and the Rolls Royce. As a child I thought that scene was utterly ridiculous.

And my parents were mortified when I read George’s Marvellous Medicine to my grandmother. The reason they might not like it went completely over my head.

And then, of course, there’s the absolutely terrifying story “the swan”, in the Henry Sugar book, involving two ruffian boys, a gun, a middle class younger boy, and a railway line. I read it when I was eight years old. No way would a story like that be published today, since a certain notorious case in 1993.

Wasn’t it normal/expected at those times to use the cane?

<mind you , just found out one of my kid’s friend’s parents is using for homework too 😐>

they were so awful because harry was a horcrux though. They’re not nice people but made worse by harry being a horcrux

But the BFG was also written after the death of Roald Dahl's daughter Olivia, who died from Measles. A child suddenly 'snatched away'.