Not Now, Bernard

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using ICT the children might design their own monster and give him/ her a story using the paint programme

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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” Then there is that other monster, the one that has become such a fixture in the garden that even the opposition seems not to notice it any more. Can we talk about Brexit? Not now, Bernard! 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]

Elmer

The Tory party recognises only two possible positions on Britain’s relationship with the EU – heroic insistence on further severance and cowardly plotting to rejoin. Labour, unwilling to adopt the former stance and afraid of being cast in the latter one, says nothing meaningful on the subject. 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. Sterling has depreciated, but without the compensating boost to export competitiveness that might be expected from a currency devaluation. Business investment has been flat since the referendum, in large part because the political climate has been so unpredictable. That volatility – two general elections and three changes of prime minister in six years – is a function of the struggle to turn an ideal Brexit, nurtured in the parochial Eurosceptic imagination, into a reality-based Brexit involving other countries and real people’s jobs. 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. Share favourite parts of the story or favourite illustrations. Talk about anything that puzzles your child, for example why Bernard’s parents don’t listen to him. Join in

Not Now Bernard | The Story Museum Not Now Bernard | The Story Museum

Bernard’s parents ignored him in the story. How does it feel when people are ignoring us? How should we behave when people are trying to speak to us? How can we attract people’s attention in a polite, positive way?

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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. 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.