Help! My household is being transported into Discworld

[roisin]

Dh started re-reading our collection of Discworld novels about a month ago, and then persuaded ds1 to join him. Ds1 has read 5 of the books in the last 2 weeks. And the pair of them will not shut up with their chatter about the characters and plots, and zany Pratchett-esque jokes.

Personally I find there's a critical number of Pratchett books which can be safely read back-to-back, before it starts causing a rift in the space-time-continuum.

Am I justified in hiding the rest of the books?

You could but you know there'll be another one along very soon. Personally these are the only books i've read guaranteed to make me lol, and it could be worse, they might be obsessing over something naff

Oook!

Have you got one of the rare TP books that aren't signed.

and do not divulge the existence of the Johnny Maxwell series or the Diggers/Truckers series under any circumstances

pmsl - we only have one signed one in our set

I do find you need a break every now and then though - I can only read 2 in a row before I need something else!

YAY! Are you telling me that one day they'll give up the hairy mc lary and dinosaur stuff in favour of orang utans and luggage and carrot?

Oh bliss.

DD is nearly 3 and already likes the odd bit of Pratchett read to her.

Some years ago ds was asked not to take Pratchett paperbacks into his primary school - because some of the other children thought the covers were too rude! Now 19, he has recently re-read them all, and has realised how much he didn't understand when he was younger. I think I'm glad about that!

these books are the perfect parent child literary bridge i think, a great tool for getting my youngest son who hates reading, hates books - into reading. he loves being read to on holiday - he will go off and swin and then come back and ask me for a synipsis whilst then listening to another couple of chapters then sodding off again.

he loved the johnny and the bomb stuff and even did a book report on it

Please, roisin, give a thought to us other Discworld residents. Lighten up or you'll give the elephants a headache .

Seriously, I agree with custardo and waggledancer - why not just relax about it and enjoy the fun? Children get little enough freedom these days without having their reading habits managed for them. Surely it's good for them to have some experience of obsessions before becoming teenagers with hormones? If they're reading so many Terry Pratchetts that they're not doing their homework/music practice etc, that's a different issue.

It could be a lot worse - DS1 went through a Redwall phase and I can still smell the mediaeval mouseshit!

They're funny as hell. Terry doesn't take himself seriously, and that's why his books are such fun to read.

We like a bit of Terry in this house too - DS (2) and DD (6) love 'Where's my cow?' as an introduction to the whole series (they're word perfect, and the 'harumph' of the hippopotamus has now been incorporated into our version of 'Old Macdonald had a farm'). The Discworld books will be fun to read to them, or for them to read themselves, I hope.

[tongue in cheek emoticon] which belonged to the OP, but a few people obviously missed

I'm actually a huge fan myself - ever since receiving the first two books as a wedding present! With an inscription "Warning these books can prove seriously addictive!"

ds1 (8) reads pretty much anything and everything, and I've long since give up any attempt to dictate his reading material

I@v fallen behind with my reading of these. Must dig them out and work out which book I was up to.

I've read everything TP has had published, and own most of them, but have to admit I hadn't thought of them as potential reading matter for dd - mind you she is only 8 weeks! I will have to start reading them to her on a regular basis. They cheer me up, I love the puns and other clever stuff (Djelibeybi is such a great name for a city!), and they are some of the few books that I can read again and again and never get tired of.

Has anyone else read "The Science of Discworld"? As someone who gave up Chemistry & Physics as soon as possible at school it made a lot of science stuff make sense to me, so educational as well as entertaining - can't be bad!

Pratchett rocks. Fabulous. AS Byatt says so and all.

i cant imagine findign books like that good

ds will soon learn when to stop ('unlimited chocolate' theory!)

two back-to-back is my max too - also have trouble switching from early to late in the series.

Throw in the Amazing Maurice and some Tiffany Aching if you think the 'adult' series needs some light relief.

Well, Cod, they're well-written (they really are - I have reasonably high standards); funny; and readable on different levels, from the straightforward to quite complicated levels of literary reference. They also have a lot of tough, funny female characters.

seriously hoping dd will read them one day, along with the huge and ever expanding library available(according to moving company)
at 11m she so far only finds bookshelves interesting to practise climbing skills

Having resisted TP for years 'cos I thought it looked too nerdy for words (sorry ) DH got me Going Postal in my christmas stocking. Loved it. So decided to buy some more......until I realised that he'd written 10 gazillion!!!! How am I supposed to read all of those if I ever want to read anything else for the next 10 years??? So I'm afraid I backed off .....

Might try one day when kids have left home and I've retired...

However I can see how they are a good child/adult book - DS#1 would love them particularly as he already loves Hitchhikers and the Monty Python films which have a similar feel.

don't give up! try the library (they always have loads) and don't bother reading the early stuff particularly.

I spent years reading my dad's collection, and when I left home I used to allow myself to buy one for every long journey - about the price of 2 glossy magazines and they last longer.

MrsBadger, wish I had seen your post yesterday. At about the same time as you posted I was buying The Colour of Magic for DS (12). I had told hinm about Discworld, and he insisted he was only interested in starting with the first book of the series. I also got another copy for him to give his best friend as a birthday present. He loves SF/fantasy so it should be a hit.

The local library has some TP, but not that one. I read The Amazing Maurice to DD recently and we both liked that - perhaps I liked it more than she did. (She did not like Wolf Brother and we had to abandon that just as it was getting interesting... I am slightly disappointed that I am beginning to enjoy rather than endure her bedtime stories just at the stage when she no longer insists I read them....

i agree with mrsbadger - the early ones aren't as good - he took a while to get into it. also think he had a bit of a lull in the middle - around men at arms - characters were getting a bit stale, not enough new ones coming in. fortunately now they're brilliant again!