Not Now, Bernard: Board Book: 1

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Write a sequel to the story, explaining how Bernard escaped and managed to return home to his family. The best thing to do was, as I insist on telling my students, look at the text. So that is what I did. using ICT the children might design their own monster and give him/ her a story using the paint programme

Not Now, Bernard is a slender picture book for children aged 3-5. First published in 1980, it remains a perennial favourite. For me, it is what you might have got if H. P. Lovecraft turned his hand to writing books for children, where the universe is a cold and indifferent place that contains monsters. Not Now, Bernard was first published in 1980 and has been translated into countless languages (not literally - I just haven't counted them). The translation can't have cost much, as the book is only 154 words long. monstrous. But being monstrous does not destroy his life - it is surface monstrosity, producing minor annoyances rather than outright destruction. His parents The titular hero is a boy who tries to alert his parents to the presence of a child-eating monster in the garden. They are busy with other things. “Not now, Bernard,” says the father, striking his own hand with a hammer. “Not now, Bernard,” says the mother, watering a plant. You can also still join BIPC events and webinars and access one-to-one support. See what's available at the British Library in St Pancras or online and in person via BIPCs in libraries across London.I knew, even before I got as far as the word ‘metaphor’ that this was a question I, an English teacher for over thirty years, could not ask, even to my own flesh and blood.

Still in print more than 40 years later, an updated 40th-anniversary edition was released in 2020. In the new edition, Bernard's parents are now preoccupied by their digital devices, on top of the housework and D.I.Y. [5] After hearing this book in a seminar it’s really made me think of how this could be incorporated into many cross curricular aspects in school.I was reminded of it by Rafael Behr's opinion piece in today's Guardian, 31 August 2022, six days before Johnson actually resigned as Prime Minister and Liz Truss took over, "Brexit is the monster under the bed Liz Truss is desperately trying to ignore" - see below. I was recently reminded of a book from my childhood: Not Now, Bernard. I’m not sure how it affected me then, but looking at it now, it is terrifying! Not in the ‘boo’ jump-scare way of modern horror, but in the sinking-feeling-in-the-pit-of-your-stomach-as-you-realise-there-is-only-a-void-beneath-your-feet way. Like watching Von Trier’s Melancholia and realising that all is essentially futile, as human cruelty and kindness is indiscriminately destroyed in a planetary collision. I’m sure everyone has experienced something similar. You’ve all read something that has instilled existential dread at the meaningless of life in you, right? Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m over exaggerating. But have you read Not Now, Bernard? Too soon, because the benefits of freedom lie unclaimed under the pyre of “retained” EU regulations that both Truss and Sunak promise to incinerate. And too late, because Brexit is the settled will of the people and any hint of a downside is sedition. Role play conversations like the ones in the story as you go about everyday tasks with ‘Hello Mum or Dad’ and ‘Not now Bernard’ (perhaps inserting your child’s name!) as the reply. Your child might enjoy taking on the adult’s role with you as Bernard. Make a monster mask Using crayons and a large sheet of paper your child could draw their own monster, encourage them to talk to you about their picture.

Print off the template provided then your child can colour the mask and wear it to act out parts of the story. Write the monster’s diary

We can interpret my son's words to say he thinks that parents always protect you, but that is not my son's view of the story or HIS interpretation of the book. He has not read between the lines and just expects a normal ending like in Spiderman or any other adventure he knows. The book is about a boy called Bernard who discovers a monster in the garden. Although it took me until the end of this book to realise this, as at first I thought Bernard had been eaten by a monster. It was actually in fact Bernard expressing his anger towards his parents who never made time to listen to him instead would just repeat “NOT NOW BERNARD” I do not see how this book can help a child with any feelings. It is too complex. Maybe much older children... floor. The implication (to Bernard's eyes) is that Bernard has got something so wrong, is so inept, that even a polite greeting makes his dad really angry.

The next resident of 10 Downing Street will find the garden crawling with monstrous economic and political menaces. A chorus of Bernards is raising the alarm. Economists, MPs, former Tory ministers, charities, trade unions, businesses, local councils – all can hear rustling in the bushes where a beastly crisis lurks, ready to savage the new prime minister. That tendency was on display at the hustings event last week, where Truss was asked whether the French president, Emmanuel Macron, is friend or foe. “The jury’s out,” she said. It was meant in a mischievous spirit, with an eye only for the Tory activists in the room. Foreign secretaries and wannabe prime ministers used to avoid imbecilities of that kind before Boris Johnson contaminated both offices with his marauding insouciance. And even he doesn’t hesitate to call France an ally. The sentences in the story are all quite short. Could you use a connective to join some of them together? Does this improve the story? Our Family Station in St Pancras is open from 10.00-12.00 every Friday and we're continuing to welcome schools, as well as families and adult learners to our courses and access events. All our in-person and livestreamed events are going ahead. Other services

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Use comic-creation software (e.g. Comic Life) to turn the story into a comic strip, or to create a story in one of Bernard’s comics. Tories now speak increasingly fondly of the outgoing prime minister, not because they remember him as a skilled leader, but because his unique skill is mesmerising them into forgetting what good government is meant to look like. Truss doesn’t have that magic touch. The Brexit booster wand sits awkwardly in her hand.