A boarding school for witches? Imagine that! No, not Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Bigotry. We're talking about Miss Cackle's Academy, from Jill Murphy's 1974 bestseller The Worst Witch. In this episode, Alasdair discovers the ropey TV Movie from 1986 and Eleanor learns that it's possible to identify with Mildred Hubble a bit too much.
Will the Worst Witch make the grade? Can we avoid talking about Harry Bloody Potter? And did Eleanor's childhood bullies have a point, actually?
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35:26
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35:26
We Read The Railway Children (Live)
The Railway Children is an Edwardian children's classic and health & safety nightmare. Edith "E" Nesbit's novel is packed with unforgettable characters, railway mishaps and an exiled Russian dissident who no one remembers. In this episode, recorded live at the Edinburgh Fringe, we learn that trespassing on a train line is OK, as long as you're a middle-class child.
Will the book withstand the edgy, late-night comedy of Eleanor and Alasdair? What will we learn about the inevitable triumph of international socialism? And exactly how sexy was Bernard Cribbins in the film?
We won't take no charity from no one, but if you enjoyed this episode you can buy us a coffee: ko-fi.com/readthat_podcast
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37:16
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37:16
We Read The Story of Tracy Beaker
Eleanor and Alasdair read The Story of Tracy Beaker. Jacqueline Wilson's 1991 hit has spawned numerous sequels and TV spin-offs, but Alasdair has missed out on all of them due to being a boy and man, in that order. The protagonist and narrator, Tracy Beaker, is an irrepressible kid in a care home and “the Millennial Holden Caulfield” (according to Eleanor).
Will Eleanor's childhood nostalgia survive re-reading the book? Will Alasdair “get narked” at the weirdly 1970s dialogue? And WHEN will we start a spin-off podcast called Bed-wet Buddies?
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27:29
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27:29
We Read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
We're all mad here. Specifically, Eleanor is mad about people saying Lewis Carroll wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland on drugs and Alasdair is mad about the Tim Burton film being rubbish. For this episode, we read Carroll's enormously influential 1865 novel, and we asked: do books actually need plots? Or will some 160 year-old puns do?
Content Warning: We make allusions to the controversy surrounding Carroll, without going into detail.
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36:14
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36:14
We Read The Secret Garden
Sickly, spoiled and terrified of the outside world, Eleanor and Alasdair read The Secret Garden. Frances Hodgson Burnett's kidlit classic is the story of an obnoxious little girl who goes to Yorkshire on her gap year and really finds herself. Is the book an ode to the healing powers of nature? Or is it a hippy-fascist self-help tract? And which film adaptation is best — the one Eleanor watched as a kid, or the steampunk Mormon version?
Content Warning: References to ableism and British colonialism. And we inaccurately describe Yorkshire as "a big county" when it is, in fact, four counties.
Two red-headed comedians revisit classic kids’ books. Will our childhood treasures stand the test of time? Or will we be forced to make fun of them on a podcast?
UK