Is DP BU? He is threatening to write to the Oxford Reading Tree...

[Blu]

..publishers and point out the historical innacuracy of having pineapples and bananas in a picture of a feast in a 'magic key' adventure set in the Middle Ages in this country?

The likelihood of children disappearing through the door of a doll's house into the Middle Ages surely puts anything that happens thereafter beyond any judgement of reason or accuracy?

twould be interesting to see what response he gets...

No he is not being unreasonable.
Go Blu's dh. Let us know how they respond.

sorry, dp not dh

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He is actually right to be annoyed as children seem to remember pictures much better than words which is why whenever I see a snow picture with a polar bear standing next to a penguin I yell "polar bears and penguins live at opposite sides of the world. They do not live in the same place!"
I know this works because my DD opened her "animal" book on the snow page and I heard her yell "polar bears and penguins don't live in the same place!"
Which is what the text said underneath the pictures, which she can't read...!

I am forever having to explain to my kids that the people drawing the pictures (or writing the text) did not really know the detail of what they were doing and have put x where such a thing would never really exist.

But definitely worth pointing it out to the publishers - teacht them to get their facts right

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Oh yes and tell them that I am sick of looking for the hidden pair of glasses which apparently are in every book!!!

I like ORT

I remember Gary Larson writing that he had lots of complaints about one of his cartoons, saying that it should be the female mosquito coming home tired after a hard day spreading malaria, not the male - but apparently accepting the fact thta the mosquito wore a hat and coat, carried a briefcase & lived in a house...

Anyway, Blu, it's probably a parallel universe.

I agree, Rustybear. Often there are references from the children's real lives which replicate within the story - the story is, no doubt, a fiction created in the children's minds from the landscape of their everyday lives. Hence the bananas and pineapples, and we should not expect it to be more or less accurate than the knowledge of a 5 year-old.

I mean, in one early magic key story, they commune with gnomes in an underground mine.

Are gnomes 'accurate'?

Then I suppose my question would be, is this medieval with dragons and witches or medieval with some semblance of authenticity?

pmsl, I thought this was going to say "and ask them why the magic key stories are so shite and horrible to read"

I think he should write just for the laugh. I'd love to see the response.

While Blu's DP is at it, could he ask ORT to clarify for me whether the mother knows that they go through the door of a doll's house etc and if so could they comment on her parenting skills? In one book the key gets lost (imaginatively titled "The Lost Key") and the mother takes them to the junk shop to help retrieve it, which implies she is complicit in their constant brushes with potentially dangerous scenarios including, FGS, dinosaurs. Very irresponsible, IMO.

I loved Oxford reading tree- mine are past it now.
I really like his illustrations too.
Some pictures are truly terrible in their reading books.
I must see the Julia Donaldson Lenny- are they nicer?
The editors should check the accuracy of the deatils in the pics- it's not the illustrators fault.
The illustrators do roughs, which are then checked for accuracy and detail.
I'm an illustrator.......

But he's forgotten the most important compaint, there are no magic keys!

And who the fuck calls their kids biff, chip and kippe?r!

Oh Lenny- I just found them- these
www.juliadonaldson.co.uk/educational.htm
Crikey!
How could these be better than Alex Brychta?!
And Floppy!

LOLOLOL

sorry, how could I have been so insensitive!

Didm't you worry that they would get teased in school?

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Apology accepted.
They have only been teased since the Oxford Reading Tree came out. Me and my dh are suing OUP.

Oh Martian! How could you!
My children are called Wack, Fry and Mackerel. I'm quite taken aback at you predujice to be honest- shocked.

You can't say Bob Bug is better than Viking Adventure......