Billionaire boy etc David Walliams

[russetbella1000]

Does anyone else think his books are rubbish but more than that really quite misogynistic? A child in yr 4 was reading from Billionaire today and a reference to pg 3 of the Sun and models being thick etc...
I seem to remember the 'granny' book-can't remember the title- was similar. Definitely a dim view of women-really uncomfortable listening to a 9 year old reading it.

It really annoys me that such drivel is considered ok!?

Awful books that make me dislike the author even more. Similar prejudices on display in Little Britain.

The problem is reluctant readers like my dd absolutely love them, she will sit and read DW books for hours. I think there are worse books out there tbh.

Yep a load of twaddle. Not a teacher but DD won a couple in a school prize and they have gone in the recycling.

Racist?

Daisy the corner shop owner is always Raj - pandering to the stereotype that corner shops are all run by Asians.

Our corner shop is run by somebody who really is called Raj (misses point)

Well maybe guilty of lazy racial stereotypes. ..... rather than any direct hatred.

They're dreadful. DS is reading one at the mo and it's going in the recycling when he's finished it.

To be fair, there is only the one cornershop and one person called Raj, who just happens to crop up in all the books (and who is probably the nicest, most helpful person in any of the DW books).

They do get reluctant readers reading though...which then moves them onto other, better things.

Awful, just awful! I read a lot of books for children and young people and they are really bad. I could barely finish that book.

Roald Dahl books are awful. Bad people in his books are always fat and ugly, there's absolute throbbing nastiness underneath his writing.

Hate Walliams' books. The kids got a load for Christmas from well-intentioned relatives. DH reads them at bedtime & I do other authors.

DS won't read hardly anything but he will read DW... so fine by me.

See, I do reading interventions with children with SEN reading difficulties and they love them, literally count down the days until a new one comes out.

So they're ok with me. He's got hundreds of my kids in to reading over the years.

Then they dump him for Philip Pullman

FirstSeemIt, thank goodness I'm not the only one to find Roald Dahl formulaic and dull. It's the same old egotistical crap every time.

I love being a teacher and I love reading. Pity children get such utter junk to read. I really struggle to find books that are great to read to my Y3/4 class. All suggestions welcome (will tell you now I'm not a fan of Michael Morpurgo - yawn - or JK Rowling).

Agree that they're not great but if they get kids reading then surely that's a good thing - plenty of time to widen their horizons once they get past this kind of "easy reading"!

I can't stand his books either and have always suspected he doesn't write them himself. Plus, he churns them out so quickly!

As I said earlier, I work in the same area and share a publisher with Walliams. I know people who have edited his books - however I'm still trying to find 'info' that he doesn't write his own books. It's generally considered that amoungst a sea of celebrities that are ghost written, Walliams is unusual in that he writes himself. If someone can show me an acknowledgment or link where this isn't the case I'll like to see it.

I'm not a huge fan of Walliams books but I don't think they're shit either.

Anything that gets DC reading is, of course, good in that way. With my sibling it was comics and roald dahl.

Agree that Dahl books often had nasty undercurrents, but he was original and (obviously) a miles better writer. Walliams just tries to be like Dahl and fails.

I really dislike all the fairy and rescue princess book series aimed at girls, yawn!, but prefer them to Walliams.

Yes, they are awful, but no worse that a lot of the other crap that primary schools hand out - the sort of simple, sanitised politically correct clap trap that seems to be written specially for the schools as you never see it on the shelves of book-shops!

My son just hated the primary school books he was forced to read - they were so boring and tedious for him. But he had to suffer to work his way through to better books. It shouldn't be like that. Reading should be fun. We had to work hard to keep him interested in books, we managed to find a few authors who he could actually enjoy.

There's such a leap between young children and more "teen" books that it's really hard to make that jump, even for those who did a lot of reading at primary and have good reading skills. Primary level has really dumbed down, but then you are expected to be able to adapt to Macbeth.

Dd2 loves them - and loves the fact that Raj pops up in all the books.

Raj is my dc favourite character. They want to be newsagents when they grow up. We are listening to The Midnight Gang at the moment in the car, they are enjoying it hugely.

Chloe in Mr Stink - kind, smart, sympathetic.
Zoe in Ratburger - brave
Lisa in The Boy in the Dress - cool, funny, open-minded
Granny in Gangsta Granny - funny

I don't mind them either. But my dc like most of the authors mentioned on this thread.

goingmad For y3/y4 How about Guy Bass' Stitch Head series?

What oklumberjack said^. Like them or no, he really truly does write them, and is very involved in the editing process too.

Thanks Teenandtween will have a look.