Sheila McCullagh books-Griffin Pirates and Tim and the Hidden People

[RosieMBanks]

I found some of these books second-hand, and realise that they fetch high prices on Ebay, Amazon etc. I can see why! - they are really exciting series of school readers which obviously captured children's imaginations in the 1970s and 1980s. The books in each series follow on from each other, and I imagine children (and parents!) would have been really keen to read the books to find out what happened next. I can't help comparing them to the self-contained stories in the Oxford Reading Tree books and wonder why there is nothing similar around today? I quite like Biff, Chip & Co but the Magic Key adventures just don't compare with those of the pirates, and Tim and Tobias! Can any teachers advise?

Are you joking?! DD had some of the Griffins and we agreed they were awful, really archaic; She couldn't wait to finish them.

I seem to remember that they were popular. They have also been reprinted, or at least some of them have, so can be bought more cheaply than the originals on ebay. I sometimes use them. Back in the 70s one of the main reading schemes was 'Janet and John' so after that you would be glad to read about pirates.