Books We Read (or Were Read) at School

[floragord]

What books did people read at school? Did you enjoy them? Did it make you seek out other authors, or did they send you running straight back to the safety of Enid Blyton?

MacBeth and Henry IV Part I which I felt they were very boring They clouded my opinion of Shakespeare for a long time which is a shame. I'm sure if we'd studied Romeo and Juliet or Midsummer's Night Dream I'd have found them much easier to study

Funny how tastes differ, Katherine - I loved MACBETH at school, thought some of the passages were beautiful even then, and can still quote chunks of it by heart! We had a very good library at our boarding school and I enjoyed the peace and the scent of the books!, always found it the perfect way to entertain myself from the age of 4, more so when I discovered Enid Blyton!

I re-read Arthur Grimble's A PATTERN OF ISLANDS which was one of our Eng Lit textbooks when I spent my perfect month in Hay, and the sequel IN THE ISLANDS AGAIN which was new to me - found the former a very enjoyable read when I didn't have to write essays on the characters of the chief players! - or maybe it was reading it by the roaring log fire in the Granary that brightened the story

[Courtenay]

Courtenay I was interested to read your comment re Tim Winton. He is held up as one of our great writers and being Australian (and a very keen reader) I try to support our writers but despite trying many times I just can't get into his books, not for me.

cheers
Aussie Sue

Don't worry, Sue, you're not the only one!! I've never managed to get into any of Bryce Courtenay's books either, for that matter (despite his attractive surname)

[Courtenay]

I read some short stories by Paul Jennings after watching Round the Twist on TV in the 1990s. Imaginative and original with some bizarre elements - I really enjoyed them.

Ah, did you have that show in Britain too? How cool! (We get a lot of British programmes on Australian TV, but I don't know how many of our own are exported, other than the likes of Neighbours.)

Paul Jennings' earlier works (his first five or so short story compilations and a couple of stand-alone stories) were the best, I've always thought - I found a lot of his later ones just weird, a lot less laugh-out-loud funny, and in the end quite repetitive. Perhaps his imagination didn't have the same staying power as Roald Dahl, or Enid Blyton for that matter! But any Aussie kid of my age - oops, er, I mean grown-up by now... sort of - will probably remember "Skeleton on the Dunny*" and "Cow Dung Custard" (from Jennings' first book, Unreal!) above all.

*"dunny" = outdoor toilet... in case anyone didn't know

[Anita Bensoussane]

Ah, did you have that show in Britain too? How cool! (We get a lot of British programmes on Australian TV, but I don't know how many of our own are exported, other than the likes of Neighbours.)

Round the Twist was on when my daughter was young and I used to watch it with her. We liked the bouncy theme tune and the lighthouse setting, as well as the weird and wonderful plots.

We've had a few Australian shows over the years, the haunting film Picnic at Hanging Rock being a favourite despite its mystifying ending. I read the book as a teenager after watching the film.

[Courtenay]

Have you ever... ever felt like this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6H88w75ymI" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - ah, memories!

(By the way, the theme song was sung by Tamsin West, who played Linda in the original series. The follow-up series over the next several years weren't nearly as good, largely because they kept having to get new child actors as the previous ones grew up, and also because they'd already used up the best stories. I seem to recall that in the end, Jennings and the producer had a falling-out and the final series was written by someone else - shame, really.)

Haven't read Picnic at Hanging Rock or seen the film - I just never got round to it, and feel like there's not much point, knowing how it ends anyway! Interestingly, a lot of people have believed over the years that the girls' disappearance was based on true events. It wasn't, but it makes a good story...

[Anita Bensoussane]

Yes, I remember that some of the actors changed in Round the Twist.

When we first watched Picnic at Hanging Rock on TV my mum told me she'd heard it was based on true events, but when I read the book there was a note at the front saying the story was fictional. The film makes for compelling viewing, poetic and spooky with stirring music, but the ending is frustrating.

[Carlotta King]

I heard somewhere that it was a true story as well, and always thought it was until I just read your post!

I've never read the book or seen the film but I remember seeing the dvd (in its' box, not seeing the actual film!) at work years ago and thinking that it sounded good! I have just read up about it and it sounds excellent, if I can get it from the library I will!

[Courtenay]

Well, Hanging Rock itself is a real place near Mount Macedon, just northwest of Melbourne. Don't know how many people are brave enough to have picnics there, though.

[Fiona1986]

I've got Round the Twist on DVD to satisfy myself when I get that nostalgic itch to watch children getting covered in mountains of seagull poop.

[Courtenay]

Or spaghetti spew??

[Rebeccadanielle]

I love Picnic at Hanging Rock. I was obsessed with the book when I was thirteen and fourteen. When I was thirteen we were passing through Victoria so we went with some friends to Hanging Rock and climbed it. It was great. I loved it there. They have an annual picnic there, but I believe it was postponed this year due to the risk of fire. I read Picnic at Hanging Rock every Valentine's Day.

Round the Twist. I never liked the books or the television show but I watched it anyway because it seemed to always be on ABC after school. The first series was a lot better than the other three.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I love Picnic at Hanging Rock. I was obsessed with the book when I was thirteen and fourteen. When I was thirteen we were passing through Victoria so we went with some friends to Hanging Rock and climbed it.

Ooh - that would be a spine-tingling experience for any fan of the book and film. If I were to climb that rock, I'm sure the music from the film would be running through my head at every step.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Split from another topic.

When I was in the top year of junior school (aged 10-11) our teacher read us Ian Serraillier's The Silver Sword. We had a couple of chapters every day, just before home time. I found it gripping and it taught me a lot, and I went on to read it by myself shortly afterwards.

What a coincidence. Our teacher read a couple of chapters each afternoon just before we went home. I was so taken with it that I pestered my mother to buy it and she did eventually. I still have it, a hardback reprint.

Three cheers for our respective teachers, John! Mine was a Miss Roberts and I remember that she was a fan of the Narnia books. She loved art and craft, so we did a lot of that. We also grew tomato plants (the class was divided into six groups and we had a competition to see which group's plant would grow the tallest) and at the end of each term she would bring in large trays of home-made butterscotch tart and we'd all have a piece. She was a serious young woman, but very creative.

[Katharine]

Maybe I should be starting this in a separate thread [the thread is now separate - Anita], but I was interested to hear people's experiences of having books read to them by a teacher.

There were 2 that I remember from my primary school days - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Emil and the Detectives. Both books I bought as an adult, and neither book disappointed.

Another favourite from my school days, although I'm not sure if it was read to me by my teacher, or whether I just bought it around that time (I'm fairly sure it was read by a teacher) and that's The Secret Cave (also known as Ten and Twenty).

I suspect that in all 3 cases, my enjoyment of the books is slightly influenced by nostalgia.

[Barnard]

When I was in the top class at my primary school, aged 10, our teacher read us The Small Woman, a biography by Alan Burgess, of Gladys Aylward, who went to China to become a missionary.
I thought it was a wonderful book. I still do.