Year 6 Class Novel is...

[Mowgli1970]

Dracula! I think it's inappropriate, though I can see that it would interest boys and jumps on the current trend for vampire-related books/films. Dd is terrified! What do you think of Dracula as reading material for 10 year olds?

DD is in Yr 5 and they've just started Goodnight Mr Tom. I've never read it, what's wrong with it?

Is it an abridged version aimed at younger readers?

HaVEn't read dracula so don't know about inappropriate content.

V good way to introduce some classics in an enjoyable way.

But they aren't reading Frankenstein, they are reading Dracula . So "girls like Dracula too" would be relevant, "Bram Stoker was secretly a woman" would be relevant, "a completely different book written nearly eighty years earlier that features no vampires at all was written by a woman" is less relevant.

Thanks, thats ok then. Though to be honest DD is finding it hard going, she's so busy concentrating on reading the words that the actual story is making sense if you know what I mean. I'm having to read a chapter to her after she's read it.

So you're going to ban year 6s from reading Twilight becaue vampirea are scary, are you?

I wouldn't recommend the Twilight series for Yr 6 - but that's because it's so badly written!

It is also fairly sex-obsessed in a way that an abridged for children 'Dracula' would likely not be, I guess.

I suppose I'm being snippy; I have a nasty cold and have been tetching at DS much of today, so it's entirely possible . It's just that (say) " Dracula may be scaring your DD in particular, but the Gothic genre as a whole tends to appeal to girls just as much as boys, and indeed Frankenstein was written by a woman" appears to be engaging with the OP, whereas "guess what! Frankenstein was written by a girly! yes! wearing a frock!" appears to be patronising her. Especially as by that point she'd explained that her only issue with the book was that the concept of bloodsucking vampires that come out at night was scaring the crap out of her DD.

Quite Pixie, it wasn't that difficult!

I think the Prof is feeling a little sensitive this evening, best to let her alone.

It is probably because of the Twilight high tide that the teacher is trying to introduce a classic on teh back of it.

We have "Journey to the River Sea" by Eva Ibbotson. That one passed me by when I was at school, but it sounds a lot more dreamy than Dracula.

And available very cheaply on eBay so I find!

I didn't think Journey... was old enough for you to have read it at school. Am I wrong?

You are not wrong Pointy. Unless Mrs Depp is a young 'un!

aha

My DS1 had Goodnight Mr Tom in year 6 and he loved it-he talked about it everyday and so in the end I had to read it too (and loved it). Have you read Dracula yourself?

No, MrsDepp is bloomin' ancient, but clearly not up-to-date with contemporary literature!

I haven't read it either-I think you would need to before you judge-DCs can like the most surprising things and it is good to come out of the predictable sometimes.

"So you're going to ban year 6s from reading Twilight becaue vampirea are scary, are you?" How is that relevant? I'm not banning anything, I merely stated my opinion that a gothic horror novel about bloodsucking vampires was too scary for MY dd. Sometimes I think people deliberately misread the op so they can jump down people's throats!

Selecting a book to read to a class is quite a difficult task as you have to cater to a wide range of interests and comprehensive abilities.

My guess is the teacher was trying to appeal to boys as well as girls. Unfortunately, no-one can predict how the children will react to a story. For example, when younger my ds was more than happy to watch the Child Catcher in Citty Chitty Bang Bang but show him the episode of Pingu with the Walrus looking over the edge of the ice flow and he had to hide behind the sofa or run out of the room - something that other children of his then age were more than happy to watch.

I teach Y6 and we wouldn't even consider having 'Dracula' as a class text. It's too easy to think the children are coping well until it gets a bit dark and stormy out, or they hear a bump at night time and something that's been on their mind since school that day will result in terrible nightmares. Maybe I'm jumping the gun but our HT is pretty lenient with our teaching and she certainly wouldn't understand why we were teaching that. What's the topic this term? Does it relate to the novel choice?

Goodnight Mr Tom has appropriate sections for yr 3 as they study WW2 from a child's perspective. I doubt very much that the teacher is reading them the whole thing!

We had a parent in Reception explain to the teacher quite earnestly that, you see, her dd couldn't be read any fairy stories at all because she was scared of them all and gave her nightmares. Everyone had a 'baddie', you see, and she was quite firm that none should be read to her at all.

Not even an abridged version, jelly?

And it sounds very narrow-minded of a head if they couldn't understand why a teacher might want to read some dracula.