SuitabookUnbearable
Paul Jennings
- Reading
- Read one story at a time and pause after particularly grotesque or sad premises. Let the reader describe their reaction first, then discuss whether the bizarre elements changed the emotional weight of what happened.
- Themes
- Absurdity and discomfort: The collection places children in strange situations such as growing nails, foul feet, unusual food and animals with extraordinary abilities. The book leaves its stance open to more than one reading.
- Loss, responsibility and care: Characters face a father’s death, a sick younger sister, responsibility for a pet’s death and a threat to an old turtle. These situations create opportunities to consider grief, care and responsibility, but their moral or emotional treatment cannot be reliably determined.
- Family criticism and social judgement: One boy is criticised by his father for table manners, while another wears a bird cage as punishment because he blames himself for a budgerigar’s death. The situations raise questions about shame, punishment and whether adults or children judge themselves fairly; endorsement or criticism is unclear.
- Worth knowing
- Consider previewing stories involving a father’s death, a sick younger sister, a dead fox, animal slaughter, bodily nail growth and a character blamed for a pet’s death; these may need individual discussion.