y2 DS has come home with a black stickered book

[MyChemicalMummy]

Didn't know there was such a thing on the reading schemes. It's also a mini read version of Lord Of The Rings, has no pictures in it.

I can't work out if this is a good thing or not.

Can he read it? Does he enjoy it? If the answer is "yes" to both questions, then him bringing home the book is a good thing!

I don't think it's a "thing" at all. It's just a book.

Read it. Move on.

What kind of "thing" would it be?

My only issue would be that I'm not sure I would want my DS to read a watered down version of LOTR because I'd like him to enjoy the real thing 'fresh' when he is old enough.

I read several of the Ladybird verions of classic books before I read the full versions. I don't think it spoilt the reading the full version, if anything I can remember reading it with a "oh I wanted to know more about that" feeling.
I read LOTR aged 6yo with great determination (keeping up with big sister) and I remember being thrilled by the atmosphere and magic feeling it gave me. It was a slog though, so I would have been thrilled to find a shortened version, assuming it is well written enough to give that.

I think that by the time DS1 read LOTR he was several years beyond books with stickers on. Who knows what the black sticker means? Does it have to be a thing? Could you be being slightly obsessive here? If I was a criminal mastermind, I'd creep into schools at night and stick random coloured shapes and stickers onto books just to confuse the obsessive/competitive parents...

I'm not obsessive or competitive. I've never heard of black books before. It's not a watered down version, it's the first chapter. Ds was just annoyed that there's no pictures.

Ask the teacher?

My sons' school has a black level - it moves through pink and then onto to link 1 and others- it has no direct link to any main scheme bands that I know of.
But, it doesn't really matter what the colour/level is as long as it the right level and type of book for your child.

Apparently when they set up the colour banding many years ago at my school they struggled to get exactly the right coloured stickers so we use the banding system but use different colours at a couple of levels. Maybe the same is happening at OPs school. They also chose to start at pink and stop at white.

Does he choose his own books at school? My Y2 children choose their own and sometimes a book gets put back in the wrong box and they can end up selecting a book that is the wrong level for them.

What level should he be on? Sometimes kids take books from harder levels if they want to move up a level!

Maybe it's just dirt? Or electrical tape, holding the spine together?

Should we send reading books back to school with a variety of different stickers on them howtotrain your? A sort of a librarian anarchy?

I wouldn't worry about book bands OP as there is nothing scientific about them.

It may well be a library book or a book borrowed from the class book corner

Our school doesn't have a black sticker either so I can understand why you would be curious. Perhaps it is worth asking the teacher. I remember having to google the book bands when my DD first came home with a book. I am a bit surprised at the number of seemingly sarcastic replies you received to such a simple question

My DC school has a black sticker box, as well as several other colours that do not appear in the usual list of book bands. They have a variety of books that have been purchased over a number of years, some from official reading schemes, some books generally available in book shops. The teachers allocate them to boxes whose sticker colours are nothing to do with the book bands. DS2 currently has "Horrid Henry rocks" with a dusky pink sticker!
I would think the sticker just indicates the books home!