Osbert the Avenger
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Is it just me, or is this too violent to be a children's book?
Kate
(last edited
Dec 20, 2012 05:24PM
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Dec 20, 2012 05:20PM
In this story Osbert is pushed to the limits of his endurance by a clique of evil and sadistic school teachers. Eventually he cracks and begins a well-thought out assassination programme, killing one teacher at a time. The descriptions of each murder are graphic and bleak. The book ends with him following one of his fellow female students down a dark alley clutching a meat-cleaver. Is this funny? Is this a good book to give to primary school children? Despite all the hype I think the publishers have got this one very wrong.
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I absolutely agree. To align this stuff with Dahl is to completely miss the point of Dahl's entire works. I would and do happily read Dahl to children in my Year 4 class, but wouldn't DREAM of reading a pretty brutal account of a child serial killer to any class! Young teen fiction perhaps, but NO WAY for the Dahl generation.
I agree, I was shoked to find it on kids bookshelf with Roald Dahl books. I am going to point it to the librarians, so they place this "masterpiece" somewhere else.
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