I was reading this Buzzfeed list yesterday about books that every Aussie kid read at school and while I’ve read some, two in particular stood out:
Where The Forest Meets The Sea
I loved the collage as a kid and would borrow the books from the library & run my hands over the pictures because I wanted to touch the images and feel the leaves (and so on).
I also love her book Window about the changing environment in housing & development. I mean, what a huge & important concept that she manages to make easily understood by children in no words.
I actually want to own both of these books, just because of their sheer awesomeness.
Tomorrow, When The War Began
Did anyone NOT read this in school? I think I read it in grade 9. I remember a rumour starting that the second book had a sex scene in it and you were one of the cool kids if you could get your hands on a copy of that book & be able to say you’ve read it. And if you knew which page number it was on – that was also VERY important.
I’m taking a guess at page 157…
What books do you remember reading at school?
What’s your guess of what page the sex scene is on? From memory – no cheating!
I didn’t read either, but I’m quite a bit older! (Am 47!) I don’t remember reading much ‘in’ primary school but at home I loved all things Enid Blyton as a youngster. Of course at high school we had the usual – Animal Farm, To Kill A Mockingbird etc.
Oh I loved the Magic Faraway Tree books!
I didn’t read either of these in school. :/
Not as common as I thought then maybe 🙂
One of those wonderful teachers you always remember started reading Enid Blyton books to our class in year 3. She was a Canadian exchange teacher, and I loved her accent. Whether it was her voice or the words, or the combination, but I fell in love with reading and writing there and then. And I quickly discovered I was good at it. Many other books followed .. too many to mention. I became the school’s youngest library monitor a year or two later and was fast-forwarded into higher English and spelling classes. All a bit embarassing, but I will always be grateful to that teacher. And to the late Enid Blyton for her imaginative (but now quite funny) books. I don’t think they would be allowed to be read to children now!
A good & passionate teacher is worth so much more than they will ever know! I always find it funny that they “had” to change the names of characters in the Faraway Tree books – I’m 29 but those words weren’t common as names when I was a kid and read them either. Adults simply explained that they were back when the books were written…