‘Fat’ family’s legal fight to get children out of care
Wednesday, 23 September 2009 11:48
The Times - September 23, 2009
The Dundee family's lawyers will challenge the decision before a sheriff next week
“I miss my children. I miss holding them and cuddling and telling them I love them,” she said. “When I have been allowed to see them, they say, ‘Can we come home with you Mummy, can we come home with you?’.
“And I have to cuddle them and say, ‘You can’t come home with Mummy now. But soon, darlings, we’ll get you home soon’. I just have to be strong for them, to help them. But the truth is, I don’t know when I will get them home. Or if.”
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The nanny state turns parents into kids
Sunday, 20 September 2009 15:58
The Guardian - 19 September 2009.
Some people have been so infantilised by our authoritarian state that they can no longer perform basic parenting tasks.
"We only refuse what we notice." This slogan coined by an absent-minded 12-year-old of my acquaintance, in reference to people stealing his chips, seems an apt one to represent the gradual filching of our freedoms by the state. Absorbed in our own thoughts, when we glance back at our plates we may get a shock at how much has been taken.
Anne Fine deplores 'gritty realism' of modern children's books
Tuesday, 25 August 2009 10:08
The Times - August 25, 2009
by Jack Malvern and Jackie Kemp
Former Children's Laureate Anne Fine said that modern stories offered little hope for their protagonists
Once upon a time, in the spiffing 1950s, characters in children’s books enjoyed wonderful adventures after which they all lived happily ever after. By contrast, reality weighs heavily on today’s young readers, a former children’s laureate has warned.
Anne Fine said that cosy tales in which children’s characters looked forward to future adventures had been replaced by gritty stories that offered no hope for their weary protagonists.Contemporary literature is dauntingly bleak, with depressing endings that do little to inspire.
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The Grim Reader - Education Guardian
Tuesday, 01 September 2009 12:04
Reprinted in The Australian Age, 07/9/09, and the Buffalo News, USA, 03/9/09
Tuesday 1 September 2009
One day recently I heard an unearthly wailing coming from my 11-year-old son's room. It was like no sound I'd ever heard from him before. He doesn't normally cry at television or films but, curled up alone in his bed reading, when the fantasy character he identified with met a grim end, vanquished by the forces of darkness, he found it absolutely devastating.
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Clearing - Education Guardian
Monday, 03 August 2009 13:34
Education Guardian - 3rd August 2009
"When I opened the envelope and saw my results, it was just – disappointment. I felt really, really bad. I threw them on the floor and went to my room in tears."
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