To her really excited every time I spot another discworld themed name on here

[HerrenaHarridan]

I just love it. What I really want to know is where is cheery littlebottom? According to mn the name is taken but I've never seen it.
So far I have spotted
MrsTerryPratchett
NannyOgg
Greebo
IShallWearMidnight
TiffanyAching

And quite a few others I can't recall right now.
Who haven't I spotted / remembered and where is cheery?

[HerrenaHarridan]

Tears of the mushroom!

There is a TearsOfTheMushroom

I love the goblin names

[HoraceTheCheese]

I'm usually GrimmaTheNome so I'll remind people wondering about what TP to read to children first about Truckers, Diggers and Wings .

Then the first discworld book for kids is Maurice and his Educated Rodents, and then the Tiffany ones. To put Midnight into context, bear in mind that by the time they hit secondary they will probably be wolfing down teen dystopias like The Hunger Games.



I still haven't read The Carpet People - ordered it at xmas.

[DonkeysDontRideBicycles]

Hadn't read enough DW books to come up with a unique nn when choosing at registration, the best were taken but agree it's fun to spot them. Such a treat to read and introduced DS to them around age 15.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

Except for the DILs of course.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

I would love my DC to end up with a NannyOgg attitude to sex. Both gender-sex and count the feet and divide by two-sex.

[Nanny0gg]

At converting kids. Which book (s) did you go for nanny?

Johnny and the Bomb initially, then Tiffany Aching.

I really love the Carpet People, but it's tricky to get the age right at school - they're usually too old to like them, when you would be reading them iyswim.
At home I would read them to a 7 year-old, but I don't think that would work in a classroom.

[Nanny0gg]

The sexual references spike whenever nanny is around but are scattered throughout

Ahem...

[YouBastard]

It might raise a few eyebrows amongst those who haven't read this thread though . I'll have to try it out!

Roald Dahl rules, I loved his books as a child. I always get emotional when I try and explain what 'Danny, Champion of the World' is about.

[blackcurrants]

I am jealous of that name, YouBastard - it's brilliant :)

I remember loving Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes as a child, and getting my hands on an old copy of Grimm's fairy tales, where people do NOT live happily every after, and being very Cross Indeed with Hands Christian Anderson for how he treats the Little Mermaid and most of his other female protagonists, actually - yeah, I was a good candidate to read Equal Rites aged 9, I think. And as a girl I would have definitely definitely related to Tiffany, with her hair 'just brown' ...

Oddly, it was something I'd always looked forward to about having children - I'd have masses of DDs and would be able to share my favourite books with them. I've got 2 DSs and so that'll possibly shift slightly, but at least I know the Discworld series isn't going to be 'too girly' and ignored! :)

[YouBastard]

I told my 2 DS's the story of Hansel and Gretel, the gory version, at Christmas. They loved it! As a kid in the 70's, all the children's stories were the gory versions..I don't remember being bothered by it. I think a lot of it simply goes over kids heads tbh.

I'll keep the name YouBastard .

[HerrenaHarridan]

At trauma by dancing hippo. I will try and shield dd from this.

At converting kids. Which book (s) did you go for nanny?

The sexual references spike whenever nanny is around but are scattered throughout, think seamstresses, King Verences educational books, Carrot and Angua when Sally the vampire shows up.
I shall wear midnight had a few references in it that made me think at the time some people will probably not consider this appropriate for a children's book.

Personally I don't have a problem with it I think it's an ideal way to build a normal healthy attitude to sex.

The DV scene is shocking as is the mob response (although as pp pointed out beauty and the beast has something similar) there is also refs to similar in previous discworld books although they aren't current, they are memories.
There is a least 2 from granny and that heart wrenching description of the old lady who wasn't a witch in the Tiffany books
I don't think it's healthy to over shield children it's probably quite helpful for them to realise not everyone gets it so good.
Also if you look at children's lit going way back it's all utterly brutal. Daughters getting sold, kidnapped, imprisoned, murdered by wicked stepmothers, nearly eaten by a witch then shoving her in her own oven! Heros on horses slaughtering dragons ( after the village has fed all their daughters to it)
Kids can cope with more than we give them credit for as long as you take the time to answer questions carefully.

[AScorpionPitForMimes]

I think DV shocks me so much because I have not encountered it in my own life, just seen its effect on friends and colleagues of mine. In that sense I am the naive one. I agree that if the DDs can process the text and ask questions then they can read it, though I will continue to steer them away from the horror/scifi/fantasy novels that DH and I like.

TP actually does very little in the way of sexual references, he's either tongue in cheek or very tender (cf the hinted-at bedroom scene between Carrot and Angua in Men at Arms). When the DDs realise there's something of that ilk going on, they tend to dissolve into disbelieving laughter, but they are still very 'eeeewww' about sex. DD1 asked me an outright question about mine and DH's love life (as in 'did you ever do that?') and when I gave her an honest answer in the affirmative she nearly died laughing.

I do hope my DDs will reread TP again as they grow older, precisely so that they can take in the rich historical and cultural references he puts into his work everywhere.

[DiseasesOfTheSheep]

I'm with Klatchian, I don't think there's much at all in DW which is inappropriate for children. I started reading them when I was about 9 (refused to read any children's books from that age and moved exclusively into the Fantasy section and a lot of the fantasy books I did read really weren't appropriate sex sex sex!). I loved Death, particularly for some reason.

The Tiffany Aching books I've read as an adult and I think they're great. The villagers going after the child beater in ISWM is vaguely reminiscent of the villagers going after the Beast in Beauty and the Beast in my mind, and that's Disney The DV theme is sad, but hardly out of step with other fiction aimed at the same age group - and far less dismal than the likes of JW.

But then, my perspective is often skewed. As a child, I watched horror movies, read adult sci fi / fantasy / horror without fear or particular alarm. I never did recover from the dancing hippos in Fantasia though

[MrsTerryPratchett]

Mercedes I can thoroughly recommend the books. The first one is The Colour of Magic. Any bookshop or library will have one.

[MercedesKing]

Sprry I still can't figure out what the theme here is on discussion as a English learner though I have read about almost all the reply here, a little confused in fact! [bulsh]

[KlatchianForeignLegion]

Ah, it's OK, my name is helpfully written on my clothing. Corporal Hand Wash Only at your service.

Joining the discussion at a late stage ... I haven't read the Tiffany Aching books, but I don't think of all the DW I have read (which is almost everything else) that there's anything unsuitable per se for children in them. The only negative I can think of is that because I read most of the books as a young teen I didn't get many of the references to things: they're so packed with TP's references to such a vast range of history and cultural trivia that I often get the sensation I am experiencing the world slightly back-to-front - I'll realise that something I am encountering in the real world for the first time is something I've already met in DW in some humorously distorted form. It's quite odd. I sometimes wonder what it would have been like if I had read them when I'd accumulated a bit more life experience.

But in terms of scary stuff, the Black Riders in LOTR and some of the mystical stuff in Watership Down spooked me more than anything else I have read. But then I didn't really have access to any horror writing as a child.

[Thumbwitch]

I read Jaws when I was 10, and then the Fog (very bad) and then the Rats (worse, gave me nightmares). I got them from a friend at junior school, who'd nicked them off her big brother.
I carried on with the horror theme for a while, as well as far more wholesome fare (Anne of Green Gables style) - I was and still am a voracious reader. When I hit 18/19, I got bored/sickened by the whole horror genre and turned to historical warfare novels - RL horror, I suppose.

The Rats is something that still comes back to me every now and then, and a couple of scenes from the Fog; plus a few others.

Nothing in TP would touch me in the same way that those awful books did (actually, even Day of the Triffids and some Doctor Who stuff is worse!), I don't think.

And although the DV is bad, it's not unusual, is it, sadly. :(
I know MN has a skewed representation but I'm always quite horrified how many posters have DV in their backgrounds, either as children themselves, or with their current or ex P.

Anyway. I agree that if they can process the text, they are probably old enough to be able to ask about the topic and be given reassurances as necessary - they might not, however, be able to work through it themselves.

[Nanny0gg]

Didn't teach it - just read it aloud (you can still sneak in time to do that in primary!).

Managed to brainwash convert one or two to reading it themselves after, and now are huge DW fans...

[MrsTerryPratchett]

Hi Klatchian write your name on your hand.

I remember my DM taking Shogun away from me twice at 12. Didn't help, i read it secretly. I still can't think about it without shuddering. Books can get in your head in a way that other media can't.

The DV in the Tiffany books is bad but I think the village all getting together to lynch the man would have scared me at that age. I must ask my nephew, he read them at about 11.

[HerrenaHarridan]

Definitely with you on that scorpionpit!
There is almost nothing I can think in the dw books I would really baulk at reading to my daughter. They won't get a lot of the references and if it occurs to them to ask then its an opening to explain it to them as you see fit.

I used to read jw back when I was that age and I do think that to a point she is highlighting issues some kids face and helping other kids to empathise. Unfortunately beyond that point she is profiting from suffering.
I particularly object to her depiction of a child in care. She has now written something like 30 books when really she should have stopped at ten ( and canned Tracy beaker)

I am very torn on the whole issue of censorship of certain books for my dd. I have completely made up my mind both ways!

I know a few adults who were allowed to read absolutely anything as children. One was reading Stephen king at ten another almost exclusively read the babysitters club

Part of me says if they can process the text then they are probably able to deal with the content.

Then I think of Virginia Andrews, chuck palahnuik, and matey who wrote trainspotting.

Then I think of the Internet.

Dd is 1, by the time she is old enough for it to matter I'm hoping to have made some progress



Hi klatchian

[AScorpionPitForMimes]

Klatchian, you are among friends. Have a pint of Winkles.

Herrena you are of course quite right. And on the whole I think I'd rather children read the darker bits of TP than endless streams of Jacqueline Wilson misery lit...

[DangerousBeanz]

I love YouBastard!! Keep it xx

[KlatchianForeignLegion]

Why is there so much sand here? And who are all of you?

[KlatchianForeignLegion]

I was going to post something but I can't ... where is this? Why am I here?