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?

[AScorpionPitForMimes]

YouBastard Yes!!! It rang a bell, I couldn't place it so I looked it up. Keep it, it's even more bloody obscure than mine!

[YouBastard]

I might just do that actually...

'Great post YouBastard'

'Get a grip YouBastard'

'I didn't know you could get ergonomic ironing boards YouBastard'

'I'm sorry but I don't agree YouBastard'

[MrsTerryPratchett]

Is it the maths-doing camel?

[YouBastard]

Yes, that's the one!

[MrsTerryPratchett]

Does that make me the biggest TP nerd on here?

[Nanny0gg]

AScorpionPitForMimes
Yes, it was Years 5&6, and I agree with you.
Carpet People for the younger ones.

Mrs TP - probably.

[HerrenaHarridan]

YouBastard. You have to keep it. Out of context it's even better.

Thanks for the good advice YouBastard

Yanbu YouBastard

Yabu YouBastard

ScorpionPit. I don't think it's about actual age more emotional maturity.
What I mean by that is if they live a fairly sheltered life, aren't aware that not all families are rosy like their own and you don't let them watch eastenders they would probably find it quite disturbing.
If however they already know that monsters exist then it can be helpful to see them destroyed, preferably with a poker

Nanny. My best friend is training to be a teacher ( doing her dissertation on tps explorations of homosexuality)
And vows to teach it in school. My worry is that it would kill it for me. I mean shoving monstrous regiment into a box with of mice and men!
What was your experience of teaching it? Did it get a better reaction than say pride and prejudice?
It certainly wouldn't be a bad thing to have more modern and enjoyable books on the curriculum. The only book we read by an author that was still alive was by Iain mcewan and it was dire!

[HerrenaHarridan]

MrsT. Very possibly. I'd certainly be wary of having a geek off with you

[Thumbwitch]

Oh I love YouBastard - great camel! along with Bloody Stupid from Tsort.

I've gone back to my old name - I didn't feel right!

[MrSlant]

I quite fancied YouBastard (as a nn obviously, not as a camely partner )

[AScorpionPitForMimes]

I agree with you, Herrena - it's just that in a class with 30 children it might be a bit difficult to cater for them all. I'm not sure Eastenders is the criterion for reading the darker bits of Tp, though - I mean, DH and I don't watch it.

For the whole monsters/poker thing I think I'd go for Hogfather instead - am planning to read that one to the DDs at Christmas. They understand paganism so should have no trouble with the sacrificial themes, and I reckon the nightmare things will just be enjoyably creepy.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

MrSlant that would be bestiality and necrophilia, quite the combo.

[HerrenaHarridan]

I didn't mean that only if you watch eastenders will you be able to handle dw.
I meant that emotional age varies wildly depending on what your exposed to.
Lets be clear here, I am in no way equating the discworld novels with the aforementioned soap!

[KlatchianForeignLegion]

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

[KlatchianForeignLegion]

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

[DangerousBeanz]

I love YouBastard!! Keep it xx

[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...

[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

[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.

[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...

[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.

[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.

[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]

[MrsTerryPratchett]

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