To feel that someone at school really should have been reading Mumsnet

[Toomuchstuffwillkillme]

Received a lovely letter in the post today telling me that DS's wonderful piece of creative writing (which I knew nothing about, apparently he produced this masterpiece in school) has been 'selected for publication' in a book showcasing talented young writers. Wow, this sounds great, hey there's a Certificate of Merit and everything in the letter. Oh hang on - it says here they had in excess of 24000 entries and 'all entrants had a realistic chance of seeing their work in print'. Do I detect aroma of large furry rodent?
Read on a bit and find I need to pay 15.99 to order a copy of this marvellous anthology - or hey, I could get 7 for £79.95, bargain So I do a search on MN (as you do) for Young Writers. The results are depressing. And apparently it's been going for decades, as the letterhead says Est and cynically exploiting parents since 1991.

I will have to have a word with school. But meanwhile thought I'd post just in case like me you'd been living in blissful ignorance and not read the old threads. You have now been warned!
Alternatively of course I am simply BU and you'lI tell me I should immediately order all 7 copies for friends and family...

My DD recently had a poem published in a book like this and I knew straight away it was a scam. I did buy the book as she's only 7 and was really proud of it. I'll be speaking to her teacher about it at the next parents night though as she enters her class into the "competition" every year and is likely to be my DDs teacher again next year so I don't want to have to pay out for it again!

Take also care with shows at big theatres. I'm embarrassed to admit I fell for this. Flyer for auditions went round. I didn't check the company out, but the theatre is decent, upper stalls type. Dd duly went to auditions. And, lo, got a part. Too late now for me to back track. £150 for rehearsals and as far as I can tell from peeking in, every single kid who auditioned clearly got a part. Whoops.

The problem with school newspapers and blogs is that they take quite a lot of extra time and effort to maintain or run. There’s already not really enough time in my day to do my job, so these types of extracurriculars are pretty much out of the question. I take everyone’s point about Young Writers, though.