'ow working class people speak, like

[Jon]

"it seemed a lively kid's fantasy crossed with a "school novel", good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited."

Yes, I only read the first novel and came to more or less the conclusion as Le Guin. Equally, I've only seen the first film. Not for me. But my brother and my son are both fans. My son has the excuse of being 10 years old though.

[imp]

Excellent review imp.

Thank you.

[Jah Womble]

Equally, I've only seen the first film. Not for me. But my brother and my son are both fans. My son has the excuse of being 10 years old though.

I saw the first film when it came out - coerced by the guys with whom I was working. I thought it was a mess.

But yep, that's kind of where I am with all things 'Harry Potter': fine - if you're a kid.

[Sporting]

We watched the films together as a family and enjoyed them.

[ad hoc]

I think the first few books (before they started bloating dramatically around #4 or 5) were good. I mean they're books for children so I didn't read them expecting high art. The films were OK, but I think the books probably better.

I haven't read any of her adult books. I think my mum read and quite liked one of them.

[Levin]

My dad got me the initial Harry Potter book when I was in my later teens, so maybe a little older than it's intended market.

I suspect I know why but I'll never know for certain. I was very much into my fantasy and science fiction doorstops as a teenager but when I was younger my dad had got me to read Just William, Bunter and Jennings books, I think because they were part of his reading when he was younger. So Harry Potter was a sort of crossover between the books my dad had loved as a child and the sort of fiction I was reading as a teenager.

But then, the Bunter and Jennings books seem slightly out of place. I met (re-met) one of my dads old friends at my nephews christening earlier this year and it was wonderful to hear his memories of my mum and dad during the time that my dad and this friend were at theological college. But it's strange to reconcile this committed green socialist with sort of public schoolboy fiction of Bunter and Jennings.

I should read some Trollope at some point and Hardy, both authors he read a lot.

[Nefertiti2]

Anthony Buckeridge, despite writing prep school fiction was a Socialist and an active member of CND

[Amor de Cosmos]

But it's strange to reconcile this committed green socialist with sort of public schoolboy fiction of Bunter and Jennings.

Even when I was young, there wasn't much chance of getting published if your characters weren't from the upper middle classes. Orwell wrote an essay on the classism in comics in the 30s, which was why DC Thomson's output became such a breath of fresh air, and Leo Baxendale such a hero to us kids (even though we didn't know his name.)

[Levin]

Do the Just William books come under that as well? Written in the 30s - 50s and he's lower middles class isn't he?

[Gangster Octopus]

Still lived in a largish house with live in help.

[sw2borshch]

I am shocked to see that there have been five different iterations of Just William as a telly series.

[Jah Womble]

I remember watching the 1977 series. It was okay, but the kids in it were too 'of the seventies' from what I can recall. ITV weren't always the best at producing authentic 'period' drama.

Bonnie Langford as Violet Elizabeth Bott was probably the most accurately cast, tbh. (Apparently, her full name is 'Bonita Melody Lysette Langford' - but you probably kind of knew that without knowing it, if you see what I mean.)

[Benjm]

I remember the finding the late '70s TV version of the Famous Five unsatisfactory because they were dressed in contemporary clothes like flares and cagoules. I had taken the books to be period fiction even though the most recent had only been published fifteen years previously.

I have never seen more than a fleeting clip of Dennis Waterman as William. Disappointingly he didn't wear a tan leather jacket and drive a Ford Capri in the role.