I love that books like Not Now Bernard by David McKee, which featured so heavily in my own childhood, are still going strong today. They just have a timeless quality about them. However, it wasn’t until recently when I looked at the story through an adult’s eyes that I realised the seemingly simple narrative is actually quite dark. Poor old Bernard gets completely ignored (you could say neglected even) by his parents which leads to him being eaten by a monster. It was then that I thought about using it as the stimulus for a p4c enquiry. I should mention at this point, that when doing the enquiry I found a perfect little animated version of the story on YouTube. Now, the internet being what it is, it’s sadly gone. So I’m afraid all I can share with you is the link to the Amazon page of the book. I’m pretty sure most primary schools have at least one copy of it knocking about though!
Questions the children came up with:
- How would you feel if someone ignored you?
- Why did Bernard’s parents ignore him?
- How would you feel if you had no friends?
- Why do children get neglected?
- Why do some parents treat children like rubbish?