To think 'Not Now Bernard' is unsuitable for children!

[HelloKitty76]

Y'know that book about the boy whose parents ignore him. Then he gets eaten by a monster and they don't even notice.

Seriously, it's a really disturbing story! There's an important message there for adults perhaps. But I'm really struggling to see anything positive that children can take from it.

I thought it was a bit disturbing too

I love it!

I agree. It’s a horrible book.

I loved that book when I was a kid! Not really sure why now I think about it

It is disturbing but worrying my dc were not disturbed. They were very blasé about it!

It's hilarious

Kids can learn to identify and laugh at crap parenting skills

As are many, many fairy tales, and most cartoons.... try watching a good old traditional Tom and Jerry, etc.
They really aren't for analysing.

All the best kids stories are dark and disturbing.

I love Not Now Bernard. I used to have a teeny copy that lived in my handbag for reading in restaurants and cafes and on buses (to my kids, I didn't love it THAT much). I wonder where it is now?

It is a horrible and rather sad story but we all enjoyed it when my children were little 20+ years ago and they seem to have reached adulthood unscathed. They also coped with traditional nursery rhymes, fairy stories, Greek myths, Norse myths, Bible stories, all sorts of myths (my daughter's special interest from a very young age through to Master's level), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the childcatcher, Roald Dahl, Terry Pratchett (when a bit older), you name it. Children are remarkably good at grasping the difference between real life and fiction from an early age, especially when there's humour involved.

Lots of kids stories are dark. They provide a safe way for kids to process their emotions.

YANBU, it is horrible. We got it as a gift and I gave it to a charity shop rather than read it to my child. It was very upsetting to read about a neglected child who gets eaten.

You're looking at it from an adult's point of view.

Must admit I found it mildly irritating when my DCs were children but there really isn't anything in the way of a message for children to take from it except that it's about a child being eaten by a monster, which could be disturbing for some children, but I don't think children would be analysing it in the way you are.

I think the Matchstick Girl is worse.

I always assumed that he wasn’t eaten and the monster was just Bernard pretending. As the the “monster” is called Bernard by the parents.

Did I just totally not get it l?

I bloody love the book.

I still have my original copy from when I was a kid.

I love that book - non of my kids where traumatised by it - we even have a cat called Bernard!

I think it's a cautionary tale aimed at parents. That's what I took away from it anyway. The message that we need to slow down and listen to our kids before they become strangers we don't recognise.

Have you read Hansel and Gretel? Now that really is disturbing, gave my sister nightmares for weeks after she read it as a girl.

Makes Not now Bernard look like the Care Bears.

He doesn't get eaten! He is consumed by his own anger, which builds up gradually through thebook as his parents fob him off. It is a fabulous way of helping children process what happens to them sometimes, in exactly the right level!

Love it. Read it all the time in my nursery.

A real favourite when ours were tiny.

I think kids like dark things sometimes.

I found "Not Now Bernard" hilarious and disturbing in equal measure. Not one of the small boys I've introduced it to (7in total- not all mine I hasten to add) has even turned a hair at Bernard's total failure to reappear at the end!

So YABU. It's not suitable for adults.

DD LOVES IT

His parents are horrible mummy

I like to take all my parenting tips from kids books. The tiger who came to tea taught me its perfectly ok to take your kids out to a cafe in their PJs if a tiger eats all your food (or if you're lying to daddy)

I’ve actually used that book at the start of a PSHE lesson to get the kids interested....we then went on to talk about how you would get an adult’s attention if you wanted to talk about something important with them and they were busy (which is often the reality isn’t it). So I love that book! It was a fabulous lesson!