What my father in law read at school

EC2 · Post by **EC2** » Mon September 6th, 2010, 9:50 pm

Three times a week we take my elderly but sprightly father in law to the gym and we always chat on the car journey. Tonight, taking him home, the subject of what we were made to read at school cropped up.
"What they give you to read at school is often trash,' my FIL said. "I remember one terrible one we all had to read when I was at Trent Bridge School when I was 11. It was called Nat the Naturalist and it droned on for weeks and was boring as hell.'
So of course I googled Nat the Naturalist. It's available these days to read online. I must tell him, he will be so pleased.

http://www.archive.org/details/GM_Fenn_ ... Naturalist

The synopsis had me

annis · Post by **annis** » Mon September 6th, 2010, 11:40 pm

*Scratches head* This sounds quite exciting stuff to me! Maybe you had to be there

LoveHistory · Post by **LoveHistory** » Tue September 7th, 2010, 12:10 am

Looks ok to me. Except for some minor vocabularly issues I'd say it would probably be a good read for my ten year old.

Edited to add: my husband's paternal grandmother was a teacher (still subs on occasion) and she and I got to talking once about reading and education. She is of the opinion that Evangeline should still be required reading. As I haven't read it I can't agree or disagree, but we were in sympathy on the lack of including classics in the curriculum these days.

MLE (Emily Cotton) · Post by **MLE (Emily Cotton)** » Tue September 7th, 2010, 1:46 am

Evangeline? Gag! I had to memorize the opening of that thing.
"This is the forest Primeval/ the murmuring pines and the hemlocks/ stand like druids of old...

Highly overrated. Besides which, it didn't rhyme, making it that much harder to remember. Rhythm and rhyme were probably invented in a pre-literate culture as mnemonic devices.