Purple Class and the Skelington

This slim paperback contains four short stories about the children of Purple Class and their teacher, Mr Wellington. The mildly amusing classroom antics include an escaped corn snake called Slinkypants and a mix-up with a skeleton on the day of the school inspector’s visit.

This book is a useful addition to the school library or class bookshelf, but it’s unlikely to be one that children will want to take home and read under the covers. The simple stories are divided up into manageable sections and as such are a good choice for one-to-one reading with less confident readers.

Taylor’s observations reflect isolated classroom incidents of the humorous kind, but overall the stories fail to create a believable representation of primary school life, and the superficial characterisations of the boys and girls in Purple Class may not have much appeal to children experiencing the realities of school for themselves.