Penny Reads

Coming to England – Floella Benjamin

June 27, 2020 by penny Leave a Comment

I’ve been meaning to write about Coming to England for ages, but the BBC showing again a film adaptation of it recently (currently still available on iPlayer here – but not for ever!) has prompted me into action.

The cover of Coming to England by Floella Benjamin

When I first spotted Coming to England on the shelves in a local bookshop I was initially drawn in because I’m such a huge fam of Floella Benjamin. As a child of the 80s she was one of the main faces of Children’s television, and ever since then she’s just been one of those constant people. A voice of comfort and common sense.

With the responses across the world to the killing of George Floyd, her story of coming to England as a child of the Windrush generation takes on additional significance in educating all of us.

Floella’s story

Floella was born in Trinidad and started her childhood there with her brothers and sisters and parents. that happy settled childhood was not to continue though. Her father soon started talking about going to England. A country she had learnt so much about at school. A country that so many West Indians were encouraged to move to to help rebuild the country after the Second World War.

Initially Floella’s father travelled over on his own, and then after nearly a year her mother went to join him. They did not have the money to take all six children with her, so four of the children stayed behind in Trinidad whilst the youngest two joined their mother on the voyage.

True to their promise Floella and her sister and two brothers were eventually brought over from Trinidad, but not after an uncomfortable period living with “relatives” who basically treated them as servants.

The two-week sea journey from the Caribbean to England was an experience in itself, but once they reached England the country, and their living condition were not as they expected. Nor were the attitudes of neighbours and other school children.

What is so clear in Coming to England, is Floella Benjamin’s amazing ability to talk to children. What she describes in heart-wrenching in parts, but she so expertly demonstrates what it was like to experience everything firsthand, as a child. The book somehow manages to combine being an important historical account, with also being an enjoyable read for a child.

Educational value of Coming to England

My (then) nine year old daughter read the book first and it enabled us to have some wonderful conversations about all the emotions that Floella would have experienced as a child, and how the reactions of other children made her feel. Having also read The Boy at the Back of the Class recently, it gave us a wonderful opportunity to compare the two books and the attitudes of some of the children in them, as well as that of the adults. To talk about where things had changed, and where things sadly hadn’t.

I hadn’t previously been aware of the film version of the book, but someone on Insta Stories happened to mention it last week and we all sat down to watch it together after school one day this week. It’s an excellent adaptation of the book, narrated by Floella herself, and for children who might not be ready for the book it’s an excellent way of getting the story over and initiating conversations about race with them.

Where to buy or watch Coming to England

Coming to England is available to buy online on Amazon *here or, if you prefer to shop independently via Hive here. If you are buying from Hive, I strongly recommend you sign up to *TopCashBack first as you can nearly always find cashback on there fore Hive.co.uk – at the time of writing a whopping 13.2% on books!

Coming to England the film version is currently on BBC iPlayer here.

Disclaimer: All links in this article marked * are affiliate or referral links. If you purchase something through them then I receive a small amount of commission, whilst it costs you no more than if you had arrived at the site on your own.

The Boy at the Back of the Class – Onjali Q. Raúf

June 20, 2020 by penny Leave a Comment

In recent weeks many of us are reading as a way of educating ourselves in response to horrific events in America and the high profile response often Black Lives Matter campaign to those events. As a family we’re doing that and I plan to share the books that we’re using to make sure that everyone see the world as a diverse place and understands as much history as possible. Both old and modern. The first of these books for us is The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q. Raúf.

Photograph of the front cover of the book The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q Rauf

We started reading The Boy at the Back of the Class just before school finished in March and the original plan was that each evening then nine year old Little Miss C and I would read a chapter together and talk about what happened in it.

But then home schooling started and by the time we got to bedtime we were normally all so exhausted that we just wanted to fall into bed. As we got into more of a rhythm though we started to make an effort to carve out a bit of time during the school day to read together, and I’m so glad we did.

The Boy at the Back of the Class

Published in 2018, The Boy at the Back of the Class is the story of what happens when Ahmet joins a new class at school and takes a seat at the back of the class. Ahmet is nine years old and initially a mystery to the other children in his class. His break times are spent in isolation and he has a member of staff sat with him at the back of the class helping him with his lessons.

Luckily for Ahmet though, children are inquisitive and want to know all about him, and to be his friend. They soon discover that Ahmet is a refugee, who has travelled to London from Syria. A journey that he started with his parents and his younger sister. But now he is alone and living with a foster mum who waits at the school gate for him every day in her red headscarf.

As the children learn more about Ahmet the more they want to help him. The four of them come up with “The Greatest Idea in the World”, and then “The Emergency Plan”, to make sure Ahmet’s plight is understood by the highest powers in the country and to ask for their help.

What we thought

In a way it seems wrong to describe The Boy at the Back of the Class as a wonderful book. It’s is wonderfully written and a perfect way of teaching children about the refugee crisis and what they can do to help. It’s just awful that the situation exists in the first place.

I can see the The Boy at the Back of the Class is a book that all children should read. Much like Anne Frank’s diary. It is written in such an accessible way that my nine (just turned ten) year old loved reading it with me, but also admits that she learnt so much from it about a situation that she hadn’t fully understood from the news reports she’d seen. It certainly initiated so many valuable conversations between us.

The other thing that I loved about The Boy at the Back of the Class was the fact that you’re left guessing until quite late in the book as to whether the main viewpoint is coming from a boy or a girl. The whole point is that it does’t matter in terms of the story, but I think it’s a very clever way of helping children imagine themselves in the book.

I’d also go as far as suggesting that it’s a book all adults should read too. Especially if you’re feeling like you want to learn more about refugee children that come to the UK, or want to help your children understand more.

At the back of the book there are also some useful pages containing facts about refugees, the difference between refuges and immigrants or migrants, and also plenty of prompts to encourage children think more about what they have read and to help them try to put themselves in Ahmet’s shoes.

Where to buy The Boy at the Back of the Class

The Boy at the Back of the Class by Anjali Q. Raúf is available to buy online *here and whilst it has an RRP of £6.99 for the paperback version, at the time of writing it is available for the reduced price of £3.99.

Disclaimer: We bought our copy of The Boy at the Back of the Class. The link above marked with a * will take you to Amazon, and if you buy the book from them I will receive a small commission, but it will cost you no more than if you’d gone their on your own. Thank you for any purchases made. It is very much appreciated.

Ladybird Tuesday – Ladybird Toddler Books – On the Farm

June 16, 2020 by penny Leave a Comment

This week in Ladybird Tuesday, let’s go On the Farm!

At 19 months old, my youngest is now obviously destined to be a book worm. Since as soon as she was able to hold a book she loves looking at them, and now that her language is starting to develop words are coming thick and fast and she loves pointing at things in the pictures and saying what they are. Amazingly she has already mastered the art of making sure the book is the right way up – although she’s not yet as gentle as I’d like her to be with some titles. And let’s not mention the bite marks in a couple of her board books!

Ladybird Toddler Books On the Farm - photo shows teh front cover of the book featuring a sheep and two lambs

We’re at the stage though where I’m starting to brave letting her have paper books when reading with me. Strictly only board books when on her own though! This week I’ve started to introduce her to some of the titles from the Ladybird Toddler Books series from the 80s, and in particular, On the Farm.

The Ladybird Toddler books have featured on Ladybird Tuesday before. My Day made an appearance when Master C was approaching his second birthday, nearly 6 years ago.

These books were part of series 833, a series designed to educate and amuse little ones with things that they would find familiar. I’ve only ever managed to find three titles from the series (My Day, On the Farm, and On the Move) but I should make a real effort to find the others before Tube Stop Baby is too old to appreciate them. I think there were seven titles in total – so four more to try and find once the charity shops re-open. The missing ones from my collection are Puppies and Kittens, Going to Playgroup, Looking at Animals and Look at Me.

A page from Ladybird Toddler Books On the Farm showing a milk tanker filling up on a dairy farm

On the Farm takes a lovely look at all the different aspects on life on a farm. From the early mornings, through to the milk tanker arriving to collect the day’s milk, crops growing in the fields and the sheepdog rounding up the sheep. It’s more than so many farm books that only seem to feature farm animals and nothing further.

The illustrations (by Pat Oakley) are lovely in style in the way that they are realistic, but child friendly at the same time. Nothing too stylised and abstract. The text is relatively simple, with an average of four lines for each double page spread, and often includes a question prompt to encourage small fingers to point things out, or even count things in the pictures.

A double page from the Ladybird Toddler Book On the Farm featuring a pig sty full of a pig and her piglets

I know 80s Ladybird books aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I’ve developed a soft spot for this particular series. Maybe it’s because I see how much my children enjoy them? Whatever the reason, I’m definitely going to try to complete this series in my collection as soon as I can.

About Ladybird Tuesday

Ladybird Tuesday is a regular feature here on Penny Reads, where I delve into my Ladybird book collection and choose a title to share with my readers. The weekly series originally started on my old blog, Being Mrs C, and this post originally appeared on there. I’m now in the process of moving all those posts over to Penny Reads and also adding titles that I have acquired since then. A list is currently being compiled here of all the titles I have in my collection.

Ladybird Tuesday – Understanding Maps and Learnabout … Maps

May 19, 2020 by penny Leave a Comment

I don’t usually feature two books in one Ladybird Tuesday post, but these two books (from different Ladybird series) are actually the same book. Understanding Maps was originally published by Ladybird in 1967 as part of series 671. A series that only ever contained one title and was called Understanding Maps after that title. Learnabout… Maps came later as part of series 634, the Learnabout series.

The Learnabout… series

Ladybird used to do this thing where they released a series with a book or two in it and then, as if one part of the company hadn’t been talking to another part, suddenly the same book would be published again as part of a different series. Maps wasn’t the only title that this happened to. If you look at series 633 (Hobbies / Things to Make) it seems that several titles in this series were published at the same time in the Learnabout series too. Exactly the same contents, but with a different cover.

OS Map Conventional Signs

The text inside the two books is identical. Both even give that away by having the same copyright date of 1967 in them. One way to tell them apart is that inside the front cover is a two page spread on “conventional signs” used on Ordnance Survey Maps.

Ladybird Understanding Maps Learnabout Maps OS Maps Ordnance Survey

The difference is that in Understanding Maps this refers to the One Inch Maps (Seventh Series) and is copyright 1960, yet in my copy Learnabout… Maps it instead refers to the first series of 1:50,000 maps, is copyright 1974, the year OS maps went metric. By now motorways appear in blue, rather than being lumped in with red A roads as they were before.

Inside Understanding Maps

Whichever covered version of this book you get your hands on doesn’t really matter. It is a wonderful book to teach the basics of map reading and is the perfect way to start off a love affair with maps. It covers everything from the first maps through to scales, gradients, contour lines, orientating your map, symbols, the grid system, geographical features and even the setting up of the Ordnance Survey. There are pages on road maps, rural maps, aerial photography, weather maps, physical maps, geology, population, rainfall and land-use maps and even navigation at sea. Apart from obviously not covering satellite navigation and the likes of Google maps there isn’t really anything concerning paper maps that it doesn’t cover.

Ladybird Understanding Maps Learnabout Maps

One of my favourite pages has to be the one on roads, railways, rivers and canals which clearly shows what combinations on a map might look like in real life. It’s a wonderful way of translating what is on paper into reality. It looks wonderful to me on the cover of Understanding Maps and in a way I think it a shame that the cover of Learnabout… Maps looks so dull in comparison.

Ladybird during Lockdown

During lockdown my daughter had some tasks to do for Cubs which involved maps and just handing over a copy of Ladybird’s Understanding Maps gave her everything she needed to know to read a map properly and to understand the grid system.

The key at the front of Learnabout… Maps helped her understand an OS map of our local area, and successfully find our house on it. She then followed on the map our usual route to school and she could look at all the different features we pass on the map and know what they look like in real life. An excellent spot of learning in action if I say so myself. Someone should give her current teacher a pay rise…

About Ladybird Tuesday

Ladybird Tuesday – Comic and Curious Verse

May 12, 2020 by penny Leave a Comment

I seem to have strangely fallen in love with poetry during lockdown. I’m not talking about the highbrow stuff that doesn’t rhyme in any way. Instead I’m into the rhyming, slightly silly stuff that will leave a smile on your face. The sort of poem that may be slightly nonsense in content, but amuses people. Basically the type of poem that loads of wonderful primary school teachers are recording themselves reading and then uploading online as a way for them to stay in touch with their school classes.

I’m responsible for uploading a load of these to YouTube for the school where I’m a governor and it’s lovely seeing grown ups read stories and poems to kids. Kind of like a CBeebies bedtime story, but when you know the presenters really well. It’s made me think about the poems I loved as a child and the ones that used to make me laugh. Maybe that’s why I’ve been drawn to Comic and Curious Verse for this week’s Ladybird Tuesday.

Published in 1983 as part of the Poetry series 831 I’m pretty sure I had a copy of Comic and Curious Verse as a child. It just seems so comfortingly familiar. The verses inside come from a variety of sources and include names like Spike Milligan, Edward Lear, Roger McGough (who I was lucky enough to have visit my primary school when I was a child), Michael Rosen and Ted Hughes.

The verses themselves are all somewhat bizarre in different ways. Some well known to us adults, but I imagine that as a kid hearing any of them for the first time could really make you laugh. Some really are proper laugh out loud funny and others just plain odd; yet in a good way. All are illustrated in the bright and colourful style that so many Ladybird books had in the late 70s and early 80s. Certainly when you look at them today they appear very much of their time in a lovely retro way.

What books like Comic and Curious Verse do remind me of though is just how good it is to read poetry, and stories, aloud to children. To let them hear words. To let them hear the rhyming and rhythm. To let them hear the person reading it laughing with them. To see how reading something out loud can be a performance, even if there is only one person in the audience. I know children are often read to in class, but I guess as parents we don’t really see that. Instead we’re just more used to the cosy bedtime stories that we share with our kids. If anything, lockdown has taught me not to restrict reading aloud to the kids just to bedtime.

Ladybird Tuesday – A Ladybird Book of Musical Instruments

May 4, 2020 by penny Leave a Comment

With plenty of lockdown home-schooling going on here I feel so fortunate for my huge collection of vintage Ladybird books. With only one laptop between two school age kids, there have been plenty of occasions where I’ve needed a second information source that isn’t screen based. Luckily my Ladybird collection covers most subjects in enough details that it fill an information gap caused by not being able to access google. That’s certainly what happened with A Ladybird Book of Musical Instruments.

Ladybird Tuesday - A Ladybird Book of Musical Instruments Cover

My 9 year old (Year 5) daughter’s music homework the other week was to think about the four different sections in an orchestra (strings woodwind, brass and percussion) and try to list all the different musical instruments in each one.

She made a first stab with knowledge that she’d picked up from school, but after that drew a bit of a blank. I could fill in a few more gaps, but it’s over 20 years since I last played in a school orchestra and so I too couldn’t remember everything. No problem once I’d laid my hands on this book.

Ladybird Tuesday - A Ladybird Book of Musical Instruments

A Ladybird Book of Musical Instruments starts by explaining how we hear sounds, and a little bit of biology about the human ear. It then goes on to talk about how wound are generated in wind and stringed instruments, before going on to talk about all the different instruments in those categories.

As well as talking about the physical attributes of each instrument, the book also talks about the sounds they make and the styles of music that are most often played with them.

Ladybird Tuesday - A Ladybird Book of Musical Instruments - orchestra diagram

After using the diagram of where everyone in an orchestra sits to do the first part of her homework she then went on to read about all the instruments. The final part was listening to Peter and the Wolf and trying to identify the instruments used in each section. Thanks to the book she was a musical expert by the end.

Ladybird to the rescue for this particular bit of homework, although I’m not sure that when the book was first published in 1966 they ever imagined it being used in a situation like this one!

Ladybird Tuesday is a regular feature here on Penny Reads where I delve into my Ladybird book collection and choose a title to share with my readers. The weekly series originally started on my old blog, Being Mrs C, and this post originally appeared on there. I’m now in the process of moving all those posts over to Penny Reads and also adding titles that I have acquired since then. A list is currently being compiled here of all the titles I have in my collection.