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#HistFicThursdays - Inspirational Series - Merlin

 I remember when I was little, watching a Making Of documentary about Robin of Sherwood . One of the points which the writer made was that each person who retells the Robin Hood legend adds a little something to the story. He introduced the idea of the occult – the Baron de Belleme in particular is a terrifying character – and this later influenced other Robin Hood adaptations, including the character of Mortianna in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves . You might be surprised to find that this blog is not actually about any version of Robin Hood. In fact, it’s about the TV series Merlin . That’s your recommended viewing for wet days during summer, if we have any rain ever again after this heatwave! I first came across Merlin when it was released in 2008. It was such a Big Deal that a trailer for the series was shown at the cinema when I went to watch Tropic Thunder with my older sister while living with her in Ipswich. I mostly just remember the dragon and thinking it looked ok. Some...
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Happy World Book Day - Class Novel 2

As promised, here is my 2nd class novel suggestion for a primary school classroom. It has been tried and tested in my own classroom and the children loved it.

 "Children of Green Knowe" by Lucy Boston is a really great story to read in the lead-up to Christmas.
Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

""Tolly" Toseland 7 is rowed up to great-gran Linnet Oldknow by servant Boggis - there has always been a Boggis at Green Knowe. The real "castle" is over 900 years old. Gran tells old family stories, and songs. Over the generations there have been many who can see, hear, and feel the ghosts, evoked by white-on-black illustrations. Toby 14, Alexander, and Linnet 6 linger after the Plague, as does the cursed topiary Green Noah."

While it is my policy to use the blurbs from Goodreads on my blog, quite frankly, I don't think this blurb does the book justice. It seems to have been written by someone who is trying to bring the book up to date. And, yes, the story is quite old fashioned but what is wrong with that? Sometimes we need a bit old-fashioned.

The children in my class really enjoyed this book, complete with animals, ghosts and a rather scary tree. There are some lessons to be drawn from this book and I will post the lesson plans tomorrow (Friday).

Happy World Book Day!

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