Books Disappearing From School?

Books disappearing from schools, says Michael Rosen

Schools are "tearing up" books to teach children about literature using basic worksheets, according to a leading author.

Michael Rosen, the Children's Laureate, insisted many pupils went all the way through their formative years at school without reading a single novel.

He branded the move "absurd and pathetic" and insisted the Government should require children to read books by law.

Speaking at a conference in central London, Mr Rosen told how he was incensed when his own daughter brought home a worksheet from school asking her to read several paragraphs of the Greek myth Perseus and the Gorgon.

She was then asked to answer 20 questions based on short extracts.

"That was the homework, that's what they did on myths that term," he said. "How crazy and absurd and poverty-stricken and pathetic is that? Why are kids doing this stuff? It had nothing to do with the story.

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