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book review

  • ‘Dogbird and Other Mixed-Up Tales’ by Paul Stewart and Tony Ross

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    Title of the Book: Dogbird and Other Mixed-Up Tales

    Author: Paul Stewart

    Illustrator: Tony Ross

    Publisher: Corgi Pups

    Publication Year: 2014

    Pages: 185 pgs.

    ISBN: 978-0-5525-5351-3

    Age Group: PYP (Grades 3rd & 4th)

    Genre: 21st Century Contemporary Animal Stories

    IBDP & IGCSE Subjects Covered: English, Wellbeing, Reading & UOI (Unit of Inquiry)

    Review Written By: Fiza Pathan

    Introduction

    The day shines not only when the sun rises in the sky. The day also shines when a PYP student reads a humorous, feel-good book that makes the child smile brightly like the sun. ‘Dogbird and Other Mixed-Up Tales’ is one such book by Multiple Award-winning British children’s author Paul Stewart, the famous creator of the international bestselling Edge Chronicles Series, which has sold over three million copies and is available in over twenty languages. The book is an omnibus, a collection of three novels by Paul Stewart: ‘ Dogbird’, ‘The Were-Pig’, and ‘The Watch-Frog’. All three books have been illustrated by the internationally famous and well-beloved illustrator Tony Ross, who is renowned for having illustrated some of the books of Roald Dahl and his protégé David Walliams. Tony Ross has also illustrated the famous Horrid Henry Series penned by Francesca Simon, which has sold over twelve million copies and is also an animated CITV series.

    The omnibus is highly humorous with the right touch of magic and a bit of indirect moral education that can go down very well with younger readers, especially in grades three and four. The novels are suspenseful yet hilarious, full of subtle humour, illustrated well, and meticulously crafted to hit the right comical and, at times, sentimental notes with the younger reader. The humour is clean, polished, and full of old-world charm that induces the younger generation to seek to play in the outdoors more than just gaming indoors or watching Netflix all day long.

    Paul Stewart has crafted his stories well, and Tony Ross has yet again done a marvellous job using the distinctive Roald Dahl style in his caricatures and illustrations. Thus, this gives the three novels a comical and fun-filled air, inducing the younger reader in the PYP section to pick the omnibus easily from the shelf. All three books are based on the lives of animals directly or indirectly, and all were published between 1998 and 2003. This was when the maximum number of clean, humourous children’s books were being published and illustrated using the characteristic Roald Dahl style to give the books in question a feel-good and fun setting. An element of fantasy was created only in the latter two books, namely ‘The Were-Pig’ and ‘The Watch Frog’. ‘Dogbird’ is the only realistic book that chronicles the story of a budgie who did not speak at all, twitter, or sing but instead barked like a dog continuously for hours together.

    All the novels are set in Great Britain and are perfect for the Summer or Diwali holidays. The following book analysis of Paul Stewart’s omnibus collectively titled ‘Dogbird and Other Mixed-Up Tales’ is an analysis of the three novels penned by Paul Stewart: ‘Dogbird’ (1998), ‘The Were-Pig’ (2002) and ‘The Watch-Frog’ (2003).

    Synopsis

    Dogbird:

    In the novel ‘Dogbird’ published in 1998, we are introduced to a bird that was one of the most favourite and sought after-winged pets of the 1990s, the budgie. The marvellous aspect of the budgie was that it looked colourful and cute, was soft and had a melodious singing voice, was highly active and entertaining, could speak if taught well, and could cultivate a broad vocabulary. The original budgie was always greenish-yellow in colour. However, other coloured variety budgies started to be bred in controlled laboratory environments, especially for their use in the pet trade in the 1990s. The budgie Dogbird is bluish-white with a bit of yellow that the pet store owner promised would talk if taught well or spoken to.

    Unfortunately, what the cunning pet store owner did not inform little Alice and her parents was that the budgie only seemed to know how to utter one kind of sound: a loud ferocious bark or a series of loud ferocious barks repeatedly for hours together. This would be so authentic that other nearby dogs would start barking loudly and repeatedly along with the budgie. The budgie seemed clueless about what he was doing or saying (or barking) and was at a loss to know why the three black labradors of little Alice’s home were so fond of playing with him and getting him forcefully out of his cage.

    Alice, on the other hand, and her parents were being tortured every day because of Dogbird and his continuous loud barking. They were losing sleep over it and their peace of mind. But they were a loving and decent family and had taken to Dogbird and treated him as part of the family. However, the situation was getting out of hand. Now, the dogs of the vicinity near and far and in the neighbourhood were also barking loudly, repeatedly, and excitedly to Dogbird’s incessant barks. The neighbours and Alice’s family also lost sleep over Dogbird and complained to Alice’s father about getting rid of the budgie or somehow stopping his incessant barking.

    When all seemed impossible to solve, one day Alice decided to release Dogbird into the wild because she could not bear to see him caged up, away from his rightful home and perpetually in danger of being mauled or killed by her ferocious and overexcited three black labradors. Whether her ‘change of heart’ was due partly due to the fact that Dogbird was a menace at their home is not dwelt upon by Paul Stewart, but it seems so as is depicted in the conversations shared between Alice and her best friend, Katie. However, the catalyst was when Dogbird got out of his cage one day when Alice’s parents were out, and the three dogs started chasing and wounding Dogbird in the bargain.

    Alice then set Dogbird free, but soon enough, because of his strange barking, the other birds of the air did not accept him and started pecking him to death. His wing started to bleed, and he tried flying hither and thither to save himself. Alice took matters into her own hands and managed to save poor outcast Dogbird by locking him back in his cage. It was ultimately decided that the best place for Dogbrid would be with Alice’s grandmother as her pet because she had been recently burgled, and burglars in her area were not afraid to rob a house where there were no dogs. It was Alice and Katie who, after Alice’s grandmother’s burglary incident, thought of allowing Dogbird to stay with her. Once this happened, Dogbird and Alice’s grandmother were much happier, and she was very loving towards the budgie, who kept the robbers away from her home and also kept her company. The budgie, therefore, at last found his forever home.

    The Were-Pig:

    In ‘The Were-Pig’, the otherwise tame and calm Albert, a favourite of his maternal grandmother, stole a Mars Bar from his classmate’s tiffin or lunchbox at school one day. He took the Mars Bar outside the school to the grounds in the heat of the shining sun and gobbled down the Mars Bar. When he confessed this to his maternal grandmother, she was shocked and disappointed with Albert and then informed him about something mysterious. On repeatedly asking little Albert whether he ate the bar in the glare of the shining sun and when he confessed that he had done precisely that, his maternal grandmother informed Albert that from henceforth, he would be turned into a Were-Pig.

    According to the maternal grandmother, a Were-Pig was a half-pig and half-human creature similar to a werewolf, a half-wolf and half-human creature. However, where a werewolf only turned into his mysterious form at night when the full moon was seen in the sky, Albert would be turned into a were-pig whenever the sun shone brightly in the sky. Albert found the whole idea scary and odious because his maternal grandmother had never been known to lie to him. And she was proved right the next day because immediately when poor Albert saw the sun shining extremely brightly after a long spell of rain, he turned into a plus-size but miniature were-pig. And the moment he was transformed, he grew extremely or ravenously hungry.

    He went to the school cafeteria and the cafeteria’s kitchen, where he greedily gobbled down all the food he found. He managed to do so on the sly because of his small size, but soon, the other cooks found out about his actions, especially when he accidentally dropped a vessel of heated custard. He tried fleeing from their grasp but was blinded by the slop bucket being attached to his head. He ran away from the scene of the crime with the slop bucket still stuck to his head when he appeared before his homeroom teacher. She immediately recognized him because of his clothes and got the bucket off his head. When his face was revealed, he was again turned into a normal boy and was not caught by the cooks because they were after a giant pig.

    He then vowed to his maternal grandmother that he would never be greedy for food again. He wondered why he was turned back into a normal boy when he noticed an unknown student flicking his Mars Bar from his lunch box. On hearing this news, the maternal grandmother informed him that it was because of the robbery of his own Mars Bar by someone else that he had turned back into a little boy and that the curse of the were-pig was now upon someone else in his school. Albert nevertheless vowed that he would not ever be greedy to rob someone’s food again, and the maternal grandmother seemed unusually pleased with this vow, which made Albert wonder who was behind the magical and crazy happenings of that school day.

    The Watch Frog:

    In the novel ‘The Watch-Frog,’ a little girl named Looby has her bedroom in the back of a tall but cozy house in London. She had been given that room in the house as it was the quietest place in the home, and it remained quiet till one day, a frog appeared in the garden pond outside Looby’s bedroom window. This frog habitually croaked from 4:00 am, disturbing Looby’s sleep midway or too early. Looby started losing sleep literally and metaphorically over this noisy frog, and dark circles started appearing below her eyes along with terrible bags.

    Looby’s grandfather was the one to notice the change in Looby’s sleep-deprived appearance and asked her what the matter was, to which Looby indicated the problem she was having with the frog. When her grandfather heard about the frog, he mysteriously suggested to her that the frog was probably a frog prince, like in the famous fairy story ‘The Frog Prince’ taken from the Grimm Fairy Tales. He hinted that Looby should probably try kissing the frog to get a different reaction. When Looby heard what her grandfather said, she almost gagged and vowed to do anything but kiss the frog living in the little pond outside her bedroom.

    She tried many ways to avoid the irritating and noisy frog non-violently, even taking him to a faraway pool with her mother in tow and releasing him there to live peacefully and comfortably away from her bedroom. However, the frog always managed to find his way back. One day, the neighbour’s ginger-coloured tomcat, Pugsy, partially swallowed the frog. It was then that Looby felt so terrible for the frog that she saved him from the clutches of Pugsy. The Frog was wounded and lying unconscious beside Looby, which broke her heart. Looby petted and kissed him gently to revive him, after which the Frog returned to consciousness and started conversing in English.

    However, he did not turn into a handsome prince as Looby’s grandfather thought would happen if his granddaughter kissed the frog. Instead, this frog retold the story of his recent adventure to a very curious and patient Looby. He informed her that he was an ordinary 12-year-old pre-teen boy. A week ago, he was spending his summer vacation at his seaside adventure camp while his parents were off trekking in the Amazon rainforest, which they did every year. Diving off the coast the previous Sunday, he bumped into a hideous-looking waterwitch who turned him into a frog. She said he would never return to normal unless he did something good for another person without expecting anything. Since then, he found himself in Looby’s backyard or garden pond and had been croaking away, thinking that he probably had to do something good for her to turn back into a 12-year-old boy and return to his family before the summer vacation ended or his family would get worried about him. The summer vacation that year was going to end in 8 days, and before that, he was keen on turning back into a 12-year-old boy.

    On hearing his intriguing story, Looby was keen on helping him out as long as he stopped his incessant croaking and roomed with her in her bedroom away from Pugsy the tomcat, who had evil intentions for the frog. She made a special aquarium for him that very day and placed him in it. She accidentally fell asleep due to many days of sleep deprivation, and after she awakened, she turned to check whether the aquarium or frog tank was still there or whether she had dreamt of the whole episode. The tank was still there with the frog in it, but he had stopped both croaking and talking. Instead, he stared at her quietly and intently whenever she tried to converse with him. Soon, she started questioning her sanity as she returned to a normal state, especially her sleep schedule.

    One night at around 12:40 am, the frog woke the sleeping Looby up by croaking desperately as he used to. Looby was shocked to hear him croaking in this manner but then realized the reason for the same. Gas had been leaked in her home because of a faulty bathroom geyser that her father had worked on without the help of a professional. This led to severe and dangerous gas leakage, which could have blown up the house or could have set the house on fire. The authorities arrived on time to save the family from the crisis successfully, along with reprimanding Looby’s father for trying to fix the geyser on his own as a ‘do-it-yourself’ project because gas was never to be tampered so carelessly with. While all this was happening, Looby realized the frog had saved her family’s life. She headed straight back to her bedroom when she found the frog missing from his tank. Instead, she saw giant webbed footprints, part of a young pre-teen’s scuba diving outfit, walking out of her bedroom, down her stairs, then out of her house, and getting lost in the garden and further from her home. She realized, therefore, that because of his good deed, the frog had been successfully turned into a pre-teen boy again and had started his journey back to his parents home before that year’s summer vacation could end or before they returned from trekking in the Amazon.

    Analysis

    Dogbird:

    As stated earlier, all the stories were cleanly humorous and also indicated an indirect moral at the end of the story. None of the novels could better define this statement than the novel ‘Dogbird’. Though Dogbird was accepted in the home of Alice and her parents, he found his forever home in her grandmother’s house because her grandmother would accept Dogbird for who he was and because he was helpful to her as an indirect protector.

    However, there is another implicit aspect that we, as IB or IGCSE teachers, can also identify with while reading about the grandmother’s relationship with the budgie. Notice that when the budgie lived with Alice and her family, he would only bark or growl incessantly and viciously like a dog. However, the moment he started living with Alice’s grandmother, he barked only when he needed to do so to protect her. Instead, he began speaking to the grandmother, occasionally using words and phrases he picked up from her. This indicates that her acceptance of his uniqueness and her putting him at ease brought out the budgie tendencies hidden within him all the time, apart from his unique but annoying characteristic. If Alice and her family had probably been more affectionate and accepting of the budgie while he was with them, he would have stopped barking incessantly. Notice that even when Alice’s family named the budgie, they called him tauntingly by the rather rude name of Dogbird. In contrast, the grandmother gave him the decent and endearing name of Bluey, giving him the respect that a new family member was due.

    Another factor worth pondering is the sudden rush to get the budgie free into the wild after the three labradors attacked Dogbird. It is evident that Alice’s family did not want the bird, and Alice knew it was also becoming a nuisance in the neighborhood. She wanted a budgie in the house to speak and sing to her human words, not to talk only barking sounds that dogs could understand. Therefore, all these factors were put into play and set off by the catalyst of the budgie being attacked by the three black labradors that induced Alice and even Katie to set Dogbrid free into the wild. That is a highly grey characteristic we see in Alice and Katie per se. Still, the fact that she saved the budgie from imminent doom immediately when his kind did not accept him negated that the bird’s release was maliciously done to get rid of him.

    This particular story contained within this omnibus titled ‘Dogbird and Other Mixed-Up Tales’ by Paul Stewart is the only one that is realistic and does not contain a fantasy element. This made the novel seem more believable than the other two and more relatable because the issues faced by all the characters and their reactions to the same were probably how most human beings would react in such an extraordinary circumstance. The grandmother’s response to Dogbird was, however, very touching, making the young PYP reader realize that the grandmother was one of those individuals who lived an ordinary life in an extraordinary manner with compassion and lots of love.

    Coming to the bird itself, the budgie, as I have mentioned before, is the classic 1990s pet bird (also known as a parakeet, especially in the USA) that one would, as the decade progressed, see in every other kid’s birdcage at home or in their private garden. They were bred in various colours to be housed as pets as they were amiable, had a vast vocabulary, were not as vicious or moody as parrots, were great singers, could be easily trained if adopted when young, and because of hobby breeders keeping them in custody for decades together, they had acquired the tendency to live much longer than other pet birds.

    Dogbird was a blue-white and yellow male budgie or parakeet, which is not the ordinary colour of this bird species found originally in the wild. Only green-yellow budgies are found in the wild; the colour mutation breeding was done to sell these colourful and cute-looking birds as pets. That was yet another reason why when Dogbird was let out into the wild, the other birds were unwilling to accept him because he did not look like a regular budgie or parakeet of the wild. He looked like an alien, and usually, birds are not so tolerant of aliens. They prefer to eliminate such a creature rather than risk being hurt by them. That probably accounts for the wild birds’ unruly behavior towards Dogbird in the novel.

    The Were-Pig:

    There were more direct explicit images in this novel titled ‘The Were-Pig’ than implicit ones. This is because the novel was directly related to the theme of fantasy rather than based on a real animal’s story. In ‘The Were-Pig’, we see a little wild side to the author Paul Stewart, where he hints directly that Albert’s maternal grandmother was probably a witch who delved into magic. That is perhaps why she was considered a strange one in her family and an added reason why Albert’s mother was a single parent fending for herself and her only son. We see the inclusion of single-parent children in his novel ‘The Were-Pig’ and the difficulties they go through when they are misunderstood. Yet despite so many positive and intriguing aspects to this particular novel, which incorporates very well the inclusiveness reserved for a perfect IB and IGCSE education, the novel is lacking in a proper plot, suspense and Albert seems like a weak character at the end of the novel compared to his astounding maternal grandmother and brave single parent mother whom we as readers wished we saw more of in this novel. It would have probably added some direction to an otherwise weak plot.

    We are told the bare minimum about these two independent and unconventional women, just that Albert’s mother had divorced her husband recently, was a working single mother, and left home at 7:00 am and returned home around 12 hours later. She, therefore, needed the assistance of her mother, Nan Tucker, who was an unconventional grandmother who did not look the part at all, especially with her slim and trim figure, her bright brown hair, her green eyes, plaited long and colourful skirts, beads in her hair and her penchant for playing the guitar, telling amazing stories, allowing Albert the free will to pick strange things up from the road, etc. We, as readers, hoped to see more of these two daring women in the novel, but the novel drifted toward Albert’s school life, which did not attract as much attention because of Albert’s underdevelopment as a character.

    Albert’s mother was not even given a name, which is surprising when such a meaningful, inclusive element had been introduced by the author Paul Stewart in the form of a single parent; why introduce such an eye-catching and inclusive element to the story and then neglect to name the intriguing character? As mentioned before in the analysis, the book was published in the year 2002, when such themes were not common in the juvenile fiction of the day, but if anyone took the trouble to normalize this situation, they would have at least the decency of giving a name to the mother or a proper description of her profession! It is the least the author can do to give dignity to his character. Nevertheless, this was a start in the genre that would develop significantly over a remarkable decade of inclusivity in children’s literature, which would blossom into the courageous, bold, and stunning new genre of juvenile literature post-2014. In 2025, when this review is being typed, the symbol of the single-parent mother is highly glorified rather than hidden in the background of a story, novel, or even a bestselling series.

    As mentioned earlier, the plot is weak, and the theme of the were-pig intrigues the reader, but the insatiable appetite of Albert when he turns into a were-pig is not pleasing or intriguing to the eye to witness. One tends to gawk at the food-devouring were-pig waiting for some real action to take place, which never does happen. Nevertheless, it was a feel-good read, though not as humourous as ‘Dogbird’ and ‘The Watch-Frog’. A sight for sore eyes is to see the female homeroom teacher of Albert’s being inclusively represented as a Black-British woman and thankfully not painted according to the caricature of a damsel in distress, which was the epitome of what most of the juvenile books of the 1980s and 1990s were all about. This kind of inclusivity is in keeping with the English curriculum of an IB or IGCSE student and can be analyzed and critiqued by the PYP 3rd or 4th-grade student in their UOI or Unit of Inquiry class.

    The homeroom teacher is depicted here as a villain who tends to pick on Albert whenever he is caught off guard. Her name was Mrs. Wilkinson, and this is a daring and unique feature of this novel titled ‘The Were-Pig’. The notion of being free enough to depict Black-British or Black-American characters as villains or negative characters boldly only managed to strike a permanent ground in 2015 without unduly harming the sentiments related to that particular community in the field of literature. It was fascinating to see Mrs. Wilkinson pulling the slop bucket off Albert’s little head and trying to visualize that portion. It can bring a bit of a chuckle in any young reader, considering the otherwise nondescript Albert trying to get into trouble by getting himself uselessly stuck in a bucket of slop and potato peels!

    There is an indication that the story’s ending was partly due to some magic hidden up the sleeve of Nan Tucker, as is evident from the mysterious disappearance of the Mars Bar from Albert’s tiffin box or lunch box. This similar element is also seen in the third novel titled ‘The Watch-Frog’, where it seems like Looby’s grandfather had something up his sleeve when he dropped a hint to Looby to try and steal a kiss from the annoying frog in her backyard. Where the former story was concerned, however, the Grandmother gave a direct indication that she could have been responsible for the strange happenings in Albert’s day at school, while the latter, Looby’s grandfather, does not make an appearance after the 12-year-old boy cum frog leaves her residence to return to his parents.

    The Watch-Frog:

    In ‘The Watch-Frog’, a novel published by Paul Stewart in 2003, a year soon after ‘The Were-Pig’, one sees that Paul Stewart tries to redeem his glaring plot holes or lack thereof in the story of friendship between two very different people: a frog who is out to return to his human absentee parents and Looby, or A.K.A. Louise Mitchell, who wants to regain her beauty sleep by wishing a frog in her pond to grow silent for a change!

    These two very different people are not out to romance each other but to help each other out so as not to make the 12-year-old boy’s absentee parents worried about his absence from the seaside adventure camp and their home. The themes or virtues implied are compassion, mercy, helpfulness, and gratefulness or being thankful. All these virtues are part of the PYP IB or International Board student’s overall incorporated 12 Attitudes to foster some fundamental IB values, beliefs, and feelings in the concerned student. They would fall into the categories of:

    1. Appreciation

    2. Commitment

    3. Empathy

    4. Integrity and

    5. Respect

    Though the two children show exemplary compassion, commitment, and gratitude for their service to each other, we see some negative aspects in their fellow adults. The 12-year-old boy’s parents are intellectual adventurists who prefer leaving to go off trekking to the Amazon rain forest for a whole month without even seeing their son, who would be sent off to a seaside adventure camp till they would arrive back. It is evident from the sub-plot of the story that the boy’s absence from the camp would only be reported to the absentee parents another 8 days after the boy’s mysterious disappearance. Yet, in his distress, the ever-faithful son is not concerned about his predicament as he recounts his ordeal to Looby. Instead, he wishes to return to his normal form to return to his parent’s home before the summer vacation ends, as they would be worried upon returning to England and hearing that their son has been missing for the past 16 or more days! The boy’s respect and admiration for his parents and their job is evident from his reason for returning to them.

    However, the absentee parents seem too irresponsible in this instance. The story is set in 2002 when mobile phones and other forms of telecommunication were readily available and affordable enough to Westerners. The 12-year-old boy’s parents were probably research scientists, and it would be necessary for them to carry several forms of telecommunication with them while on their trekking. Yet, they felt it impossible to contact their only son during this long absence. This sounds too neglectful on their part rather than making us as readers sympathize with them, saying that they were busy individuals with no time other than their personal affairs.

    Also, Looby’s mother and father were quite careless individuals, with Looby’s mother being unsure about how to conduct herself with her daughter concerning the sleep issue or the presence of the perpetually croaking frog. Even Looby’s father showed his absolute carelessness and disregard for his family’s safety when he tried to fix the geyser on his own, causing a terrible gas leak that could have taken their lives if the frog had not alerted Looby on time. Therefore, this novel shows several cases of careless parents who seem disinterested in their family’s or children’s wellbeing. Even Looby’s dark circles and bags don’t startle her parents enough to take it upon themselves to get rid of the frog for the sake of their little girl. This was startling yet somewhat relatable compared to the exaggerated parenting style of the Wormwoods starring in Roald Dahl’s international bestselling and perennial favourite novel ‘Matilda’. To read up on my book review of the novel ‘Matilda’ check it out on my bookish and literary blog insaneowl.com.

    The Wormwoods were absolute disasters as parents for little Matilda. In contrast, many things were redeemable about Looby’s parents, especially their concern for her welfare and sleep deprivation. This can be seen in the fact that where the former was concerned, they made her have the tallest and quietest bedroom in the house to rest in, while where the latter was concerned, they constantly inquired after her health and sleep, or lack thereof.

    Conclusion

    Thus, Paul Stewart’s three books in this omnibus titled ‘Dogbird and Other Mixed-Up Tales’ were entertaining, an excellent tool for value education or what we call in an IGCSE or IB school as the subject Wellbeing, a light read, and an extremely well-illustrated one indeed. Tony Ross, the illustrator, has worked well with Paul Stewart to create memorable illustrations and caricatures for this omnibus that can easily make the younger PYP reader laugh out loud and yet learn some excellent IB Fundamentally Positive Attitudes along the way as prescribed by the IBO. I’ve noticed that when Tony Ross gets along well with his author colleague, the project they mutually work on turns out very well. Paul Stewart seems like an expert in moralistic subtle humour for juvenile readers. It would seem like, unlike Roald Dahl, he tends to move towards the absurd and even the sentimental, something similar to the plots of David Walliams, the protégé of Roald Dahl or, as most initial fans of Walliams call him, the true heir to Roald Dahl fame. I hope to read and review more books illustrated by Tony Ross in the near future.

    I look forward to reading, reviewing, and analyzing more PYP or Primary Years Programme-related books in the fiction and non-fiction categories in light of the International Baccalaureate.

    Special Note

    If you are interested in more book reviews, indie author interviews, book analyses, short story analyses, poems, essays, essay analyses, and other bookish content, check out my blog, insaneowl.com. If you are interested in purchasing my books, you can check the products page on Amazon. There is a lot of good stuff to buy! Happy reading to you always!

    ©2025 Fiza Pathan

  • ‘The Monkey Theory: Conquer Your Mental Chatter’ by Sfurti Sahare

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    Introduction

    We are surrounded by Gen-Alpha and Gen-Z students who are victims of severe cases of procrastination, anxiety, disorderly behavior, and a heightened sense of materialism. They look for validation for their existence from social media and their peers, both of which are detrimental to their overall development and growth as ethical adults of the future. Never before has such a crisis occurred where the younger generation seems ‘unfit’ to take on the responsibilities of a hi-tech, fast-evolving society. Instead, they have become the victims of the various issues related to this accelerated model of societal development, including becoming hardcore addicts of gaming, drugs, alcohol, vaping, smoking, gambling, racing, and the like. In such instances, life coach and motivational speaker Sfurti Sahare brings out this timely self-help or how-to-book for the young to tackle the mental negative chatter that dominates their waking moments.

    Sfurti Sahare is the national bestselling author of ‘Think And Win Like Dhoni’, published by Jaico Books, which established her name in the Indian publishing world as a winning motivational speaker, life coach, and success manual expert. It also established her name as a reputed sports writer, and now she will be coming out with her latest sports how-to book titled ‘Think and Win Like Virat: 5 Success Secrets’. Sahara has a knack for breaking down complex psychological jargon into lucid and easy-to-understand story mnemonics for the young to understand, especially those not used to reading heavy self-help books or those from our present troubled Gen-Alpha and Gen-Z generation.

    In ‘The Monkey Theory: Conqueror Your Mental Chatter’, Sfurti Sahare, through a series of monkeys that live in our brains like the Drunk Monkey, Anger Monkey, Fear Monkey, Procrastination Monkey, etc., manages to decipher the negative mental chatter the young indulge in every day, sometimes 24/7, especially while at school, college, or on social media. She also challenges the reader to win over or defeat their negative monkeys and fulfill only the dreams and ambitions of the Human Monkey, the only monkey that seeks the betterment of humans. Sahare believes that we can overcome our hidden demons, or mischievous monkeys, to get to where we want to see ourselves as successful, happy, and ethical citizens of the new global future.

    Synopsis

    “It’s not talent that makes a winner. It’s what you do with the talent that matters.” ― Sfurti Sahare (Think and Win Like Dhoni)

    The book begins with the Human Monkey in a hypothetical crisis about how to fulfill his dreams when he is at every point in his existence thwarted in his attempts by various negative monkeys in the form of negative self-talk or mental chatter. He mentions his struggles with the P-Monkey or Procrastination Monkey, the Fear Monkey, the Drunk Monkey, the Complaint Monkey, the Aggression Monkey, etc. The author then, through the help of the hypothetical idea of an ‘Eagle of Wisdom,’ takes the Human Monkey on a journey of inner healing and transformation that does get a person to reach their goals and to fulfill their various aspirations in life for the betterment of themselves and the world at large.

    During this process, the Human Monkey is shown a series of life examples showcasing how one gives into procrastination, anxiety, self-doubt, aggression, complaints, etc., and then how to eliminate these negative emotions, turning them into opportunities for success, thereby creating a foundation for more positive and beneficial monkeys ruling the mind of the individual and not the earlier unruly negative monkeys. The hypothetical Eagle of Wisdom takes such a Human Monkey on a journey to the heart of the mental chatter where the positive monkeys are kidnapped and onto a magically peaceful island called the ‘purple island’ that individuals can use as their go-to place to remind themselves not to let their emotions take the better of their rational judgement and sense of equilibrium.

    Using simple analogies, real-life examples, and engaging exercises, Sfurti Sahare manages to convey the required requisites needed for every Gen-Alpha and Gen-Z individual to stop letting their mental chatter get the better of them and instead start crafting their own future using their talents, skills, and resources at their disposal. This is because it does not depend on how smart, wealthy, resourceful, and organized you are but on how you use those talents, resources, skills, etc., to achieve what you need in this lifetime. And you only live once as the personality you are! So why waste one’s life running after trivialities when life needs to be seen in the bigger picture beyond what one can easily see and perceive? In this book, Sfurti Sahare teaches us to look beyond what we see.

    Analysis

    This non-fiction how-to or self-help book is the perfect tool for Gen-Alpha and Gen-Z individuals struggling with issues that their predecessors normally did not face while growing up. This is because their predecessors, including young Millennials, have been given the opportunity to have several things at their disposal for free, which is not available to their successive generations, and the following list speaks of these unique opportunities that they had:

    1. Leisure Time in plenty to do as they please, especially to be content to be with themselves and to do their own thing, be it playing a musical instrument for long hours at a stretch, painting with watercolors all night, reading novels in a park till the sun sets, etc., or even just sitting idle and watching a natural scene like the sunset, the sunrise, the activities on a beach, children at play in a park, animals going about their daily errands, flowers blooming, etc. They had the leisure and the dignity to take time off in plenty to ‘stand and stare’ and participate in rejuvenating and revitalizing leisure time.

    2. They were not so materialistic and prone to giving into affective values like loyalty, love, compassion, empathy, mercy, gratefulness, remorse, etc. All these emotions came naturally to them, and all could be easily identified from the expressions of these Boomers, Gen-Y, Gen-X, and Millennial Individuals. It was not difficult for past generations to emote and feel the pain of others; it did not take a lot of effort to do so. Money, fame, power, gadgets, etc., were not the ultimate sources of lasting fulfillment for these earlier generations. Instead, feeling comfortable with themselves and being contented individuals doing their best to help one another is what defined these people best.

    3. They were very much in tune with nature and spent more than 85% of their waking moments surrounded by nature or within the bosom of nature. Playtime was always meant to happen outdoors in gardens, parks, fields, meadows, near river banks, etc., where knees were scraped, dips were taken in cool pools, swings were made with tyres attached to branches of trees with a strong rope, basketball, and cricket galore were played on hot, dusty fields, flowers were plucked and scattered upon each other like confetti and no bicycle race in the wild was complete without a good roll in the wet mud.

    4. Their lives were not a rat race of tuition, competitive exams, portfolio submission work, CV updates, extracurricular classes for credit, and working late into the night trying to make it to the University of their Dreams. Life was simply – simple! Life was not a never-ending competition, and your worth as a human did not depend on the money in your bank account and your previous stalwart alma maters. Life was beautiful because it was not a race.

    5. They loved to play ‘make-believe’ games and dramatize situations like being a doctor in the hospital, a teacher at school, or a policeman, being the Famous Five or the Secret Seven, depending on how many friends came out to play that day with their dog or dogs! It prepared them to empathize, so it was not difficult for them to think out of the box or from another person’s point of view or perspective about a situation.

    6. They believed in a better tomorrow where hope would dry the tears from each one’s tired eyes and where self-efficacy equaled responsibility towards not only one’s own education but also the positive edification of others. They did not drown themselves in addictions just because they felt reality was too difficult to digest.

    This is all what Gen-Alpha and Gen-Z lack, but Sfurti Sahare has managed through this book to bridge that gap by making the young focus on their strengths or positive monkeys rather than their negative monkeys. In her book, the author mainly focuses on the Procrastination Monkey, the Fear Monkey, the Drunk Monkey, and the Positive Human Monkey. She mentions that we need to focus on the Human Monkey’s wants and needs because only they align with our dreams and aspirations to make us better versions of ourselves. The other monkeys only seek temporary solace in life and do not like to go the extra mile to work hard to fulfill their goals in life.

    The P-Monkey or the Procrastination Monkey tends to distract the young student from achieving their goals. The P-Monkey does not focus on hard work and consistency but concentrates on temporary self-gratification and self-indulgence. This is evident when a Gen-Alpha individual prefers to keep gaming the whole day and live in a virtual world for the greater part of their lives than to work hard to gain true success in the real world. This is also evident when, instead of following a timetable or a to-do list for the day, the Gen-Alpha individual prefers to waste time by scrolling through his social media messages the whole day and even conversing or chatting online at night till the early morning hours.

    The above scenarios are nothing but examples of the P-Monkey at work in our lives, and Sfurti Sahare, through her book, enlightens us to especially not give in to the whims and fancies of this monkey. She informs us to distract this monkey by stalling, not the work we have on hand, on our to-do lists, or in our study timetables for the day, but instead to stall the gratification of our temporary self-indulgent wants and desires. We can do this by letting the P-Monkey know through stern mental self-talk that we will gratify his desires later or once our work for the day is done. It then turns out that by the time the day’s work or study is done, the need or urge to gratify the P-Monkey will not be so desirable or warranted, leading to lessening the influence of this Monkey in our minds and lives.

    Similarly, with the Fear Monkey, who technically tries not to allow us to take risks in case of self-harm, it is evident that to get around him, we need to distract him or gas-light him in a roundabout way as well. Humans are very adaptable by nature; that is why we’ve been the most successful animal race on Earth, even though we were not as gigantic or powerful as the dinosaurs. So it is very easy to adapt ourselves to get distracted IN THE RIGHT WAY FOR THE RIGHT REASONS. We don’t need to distract ourselves from our work or study but from the mental chatter related to fear, procrastination, guilt, anxiety, self-gratification, etc., that prevents us from achieving our goals.

    This requires a lot of hard work, unshakable resolve, a firm mind, steely determination, and perseverance to get this kind of distraction-free mindset to work in our favor. But with the aid of ‘The Monkey Theory’ book, this too can become easy. There is an old idiom that says that one cannot bake a cake without breaking some eggs. Success is indeed only 10% talent and 90% hard work and sweat.

    Thus, though all the monkeys can be distracted, first, a steely resolve has to be established in the students’ minds not to distract themselves from what is wanted but instead from what is unwanted. One can distract the Fear Monkey by letting him know that the ‘worry session’ or ‘anxiety-neurosis session’ can take place at another time, but not at the time when the work is at hand or a to-do list is meant to be checked out.

    Monkeys can also be temporarily distracted by cherries. The Cherry Method is another crucial method that the author, Sfurti Sahare, speaks about. However, there is an issue with it that I will focus on in this book’s analysis as we go along.

    The Cherry Method, or throwing cherries, is different from plain distraction because, in this case, we are distracting the concerned negative monkey with something else to think or work upon so that the monkey forgets why he was interfering with us in the first place. The example of the Cherry Method used by life coach Sfurti Sahare is an individual climbing the stairs and spotting a giant, gigantic brown lizard on one of the steps. At first, the Fear Monkey kicks in and tells us to run away from the situation, but then we distract that monkey with the thought that upstairs is our room where our phone is where a while ago, our best friend informed us that a mutual friend of ours has broken up with her long-term boyfriend over something sensational. To gratify our sadistic joy at our mutual friend’s loss, we are intrigued to know more, overcome the fear of the lizard on the stairway, pass over it, and head to our room and phone. What have we done? We have thrown a bunch of cherries to distract the Fear Monkey and excite his curiosity over another matter. In this example, however, Sfurti Sahare does not focus on whether we should study or finish our work assignment after we reach our rooms or go to our phones and gloat over the loss of our friend by slandering her behind her back.

    The author does not touch upon this, leaving the book incomplete. I shall complete it by saying that after throwing the cherry or the sadistic cherry of our dear friend’s loss to curb the Fear Monkey, we head safely to our rooms. Instead of heading to our phones, we head to our study table, open our textbooks to restart our studies, or open our laptops to continue our weekend work assignments or projects. We then consciously try not to gloat in thought over our friend’s loss, and then later when our job or work at hand is done, we vow to call the friend in question to take her out maybe for a movie or to the park to chat with her and give her a moments rest from her traumatic period or go for a coffee to allow her to vent her sorrow and for us to be a consoling factor in her life.

    “We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.” ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer (a German Lutheran pastor, neo-orthodox theologian, and anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church)

    (Letters and Papers from Prison)

    This is the slight improvement I wish to extend regarding the Cherry Method of Persuasive Distraction. Otherwise, it is an effective method. Also, lizards are cute little guys; they are more scared of us than we are of them! Having them in one’s home and private garden is sometimes a real blessing. They keep other poisonous lizards and insects away from our residences better than an Electronic Insect and Mosquito Killer.

    Where the Drunk Monkey is concerned, according to the author and life coach Sfurti Sahare, he can be curbed or even eliminated if we train ourselves to have control over our emotions. She is not telling us to avoid being emotional; instead, she is asking us not to base our reactions solely on how the emotional train of life guides us. We need to be rational and logical in thinking out the consequences of our actions and the actions of others. We then should take our next step accordingly. The Drunk Monkey, like any drunk individual, does not have control over himself and his desires, and we don’t need to give into this monkey and his frivolities at all, especially when we have work at hand. Instead, we can distract him by ignoring his irrational judgements for another time or by throwing him some cherries to keep him distracted while we go on some other work or subject of useful study.

    According to author Sfurti Sahare, we can also throw some Oxygen Bars at the negative monkeys troubling us. In this case, especially to calm down our emotions, which seem to be running wild, like in the case of the overactive Drunk Monkey trying to rule us, we can calm him down by distracting him by doing some breathing exercises or some Yoga or Pranayama Breathing Exercises. A good and large dose of fresh oxygen always makes us think more positively than negatively, even in a troubling situation. It can calm us down for a long spell so that we can refocus our attention on our goals or damage control if we are in a difficult situation. She highly recommends breathing exercises or Oxygen Bars to be used to distract these negative monkeys regularly. Just like while gyming or exercising, we love to snack on some healthy muesli bars or energy bars to regain our strength for some more work, so also Oxygen Bars help us to work even better and to strengthen our ‘emotional immunity’, not to mention our power of forbearance.

    Sfurti Sahare focuses on two other elements in this book: the Eagle of Wisdom and the Purple Island. Where the latter is concerned, it is the island that we must, in our imagination, fix as a crown upon our heads to make us know that in all circumstances, we need to remain calm and always visualize ourselves in the realm of the Purple Island. On Purple Island, we are the bosses of our destiny because we don’t let our emotions get the better of us and decide consciously to remain calm and peaceful at all times. Even if we feel a bit wayward in our resolve at some point in time, we must return in our imagination to this calming island so that we can regain our composure with the help also of some more Oxygen Bars and then, after a healthy rejuvenation go on to the next order of business.

    Where the Eagle of Wisdom is concerned, this is our guiding conscience who can guide the Human Monkey towards achieving his goals, but only if he presents himself more often to this Eagle and heeds all the advice given to him by this Eagle. What the author, however, did not focus upon was the fact that this is technically not usually easy to do because it is hard to sift words of true wisdom from the varied thoughts and negative chatter that goes on in our minds 24/7 and sometimes, sadly even in our sleep and dreams. Therefore, we must first learn to sift the sound advice of the Eagle of Wisdom from the negative chatter of the Negative Monkeys in our head. To do this, the student needs the constant practice of introspection on their part to have a calm disposition and always think things over rationally after thoroughly inspecting the facts before jumping to conclusions. If one’s thoughts are inclined to harm or extort another person’s expertise or other resources for one’s selfish gain, then such thoughts are not from the Eagle of Wisdom because Wisdom does not hanker after what is not one’s own. Wisdom is the voice of reason, and the voice of reason always speaks the truth, which is good for oneself and others. To hear this voice in our heads, one has to listen carefully and sift through the chatter, but the key is that the voice should benefit you and another without resorting to violence or illegal criminal practices.

    “One man practicing kindness in the wilderness is worth all the temples this world pulls.” ― Jack Kerouac (Internationally Famous American Novelist and Poet) (from the Book ‘The Dharma Bums’)

    Then only is it the voice of the Eagle of Wisdom, not otherwise, if it benefits one another.

    “If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”

    ― Jack Kornfield (American writer and teacher in the Vipassana movement in American Theravada Buddhism and Internationally bestselling spiritual writer)

    (from the Book ‘Buddha’s Little Instruction Book’)

    Other monkeys focused on are a range of negative and positive monkeys like the Aggression Monkey, the Guilt Monkey, the Compassion Monkey, the Grateful Monkey, etc. All are associated with the idea that gratefulness and compassion should be the hallmark of every student’s life. Thus, these two crucial monkeys, along with the Monkey of Confidence, will keep the students boat afloat and will not allow them to drown in the various storms created by the other negative monkeys at sea. It is always possible that all the negative monkeys can easily gang up against the Human Monkey to torture them to submit to defeat, but with the techniques taught by the author and motivational coach Sfurti Sahare, we can manage to keep our equanimity of mind and to move on with our work and not give in to distractions. The virtues of compassion and gratefulness can aid the person in getting a realistic and holistic understanding of life and its realities. It also helps the individual to be a human being and not a mere machine extracting the maximum from another individual like a greedy sponge.

    Conclusion

    Thus, this book helps the individual to live distraction and negative chatter free to excel in life and to make the world a better place to live in. It teaches the reader self-efficacy and allows a person to maintain an equanimity of mind and soul through healthy, easy-to-understand mental practices, including one’s favorite positive hobbies like a sport, painting, journaling, diary writing, blogging, etc. I hope to read more books written by motivational speaker Sfurti Sahare in the near future. I highly recommend this book to all MYP students in any IGCSE and IB school from the 6th to the 10th grades. It is an excellent self-help book without the heavy statistics and jargon that are usually scattered about in other serious non-fiction self-help books, which makes the reading process for younger readers less enjoyable. If one is especially facing a crisis in one’s study schedule or in getting job assignments done, one should pick up this book and have a go at it, especially solving the exercises after each chapter in the book.

    Special Note

    If you are interested in more book reviews, indie author interviews, book analyses, short story analyses, poems, essays, essay analyses, and other bookish content, check out my blog, insaneowl.com. If you are interested in purchasing my books, you can check the products page of my blog or on Amazon. There is a lot of good stuff to buy! Happy reading to you always!

    ©2025 Fiza Pathan

  • ‘The Crazy World of Ms Wiz’ by Terence Blacker

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    Title of the Book: The Crazy World of Ms Wiz

    Author: Terence Blacker

    Publisher: Macmillan Children’s Books

    Publication Year: Omnibus Edition 2004

    Pages: 187 pgs.

    ISBN: 9780330431361/0-330-43136-6

    Age Group: PYP & MYP (Grades 3rd, 4th, 5th & 6th)

    Genre: Children’s Fantasy

    IBDP & IGCSE Subjects Covered: English Language & English Literature

    Review Written By: Fiza Pathan

    Introduction

    ‘Where there is a woman there is magic.’

    -Ntozake Shange (American playwright, poet & novelist)

    ‘I’ve always believed in the above quote. So I was keen on reading this omnibus titled ‘The Crazy World of Ms Wiz’, which is a collection of three of the Ms Wiz novels penned by Terence Blacker with some awesome illustrations done by Tony Ross of the Roald Dahl and David Walliams, fame. Any book where a woman prefers to be referred to by the ambiguous Ms rather than the clearer Mrs and Miss is always up my alley, even as an IB and IGCSE teacher in training. When I realized after reading a few pages of this omnibus that Ms Wiz did not like to be referred to by the prefix Mrs or Miss because they seemed too ‘drab’ that caught my attention, and then I started diving deep into the magical world of Ms Wiz the witch or rather, the paranormal operator as she likes to call herself and her wonderful batch of third-grade students who loved her style of teaching and relating to them as friends more than students.

    I think the last line explains why I probably relished the Ms Wiz omnibus, especially the first book in the series titled ‘Ms Wiz Spells Trouble’ which is the book in which Ms Wiz is introduced to the class of third-form students at St. Barnabas School situated in England. I relished it because the way Ms Wiz taught or rather educated her students was so in keeping with the IB method of teaching, which is in a way made up of ‘magic’ that, in a sense, this kind of education puts the onus on the student concerning their development and role in the education process or their learning. It teaches them individual self-efficacy, which is a kind of ‘magic’ in itself because then the teacher is more of a facilitator to aid the child to excel at their own pace in the subjects of their choices for an all-round development, which is what a proper IB or International Board Education is all about.

    Ms Wiz is the epitome of the ideal IB teacher who teaches magic more than subjects and creates ethically minded and yet successful students for life who will make a positive difference to the world rather than just parrots who can repeat subject content verbatim without analyzing the connecting dots or lines in between their subjects of study. Whether it was the smart Alec Jack, the meek Podge, the lazy Caroline, or the girl with gumption, Katrina, Ms Wiz managed to teach all the IDEA students effectively, catering to their individual needs and making them fit enough to tackle their own educational needs for the rest of their lives for the betterment of themselves and others. I saw the IDEA students imprinted in every student in this series who were taught and nurtured by the amazing Ms Wiz. Indeed, it is, therefore, quite true that where there is a woman sans her patriarchal conditioning, there will always be magic.

    I saw a lot of things that Ms Wiz cast aside that she felt were not in keeping with the overall positive development of her wards at St. Barnabas School, including patriarchy and what patriarchy determined that a female teacher should look like, teach like, speak like and even have a prefix to her name. This was revolutionary on the part of Terence Blacker to inculcate in the minds of younger readers as far back as 1988 when the first book in this series was published in Great Britain.

    Book Synopsis

    As mentioned in the introduction, this omnibus by Terence Blacker, illustrated by the well-renowned and loved Tony Ross, contains three books from the Ms Wiz series. They are:

    1. Ms Wiz Spells Trouble (1988)

    2. In Stitches With Ms Wiz (1989)

    3. You’re Nicked Ms Wiz (1989)

    The first book was published in 1988 after which the following year in 1989, the other two books in the Ms Wiz series were published back-to-back. The following are the condensed storylines of each Ms Wiz novel:

    1. Ms Wiz Spells Trouble

    This is the novel where Ms Wiz is first introduced to the third-form students of St. Barnabas School as their new homeroom teacher. The third-form students were always considered a difficult batch of students that no homeroom teacher at St. Barnabas could handle. However, Ms Wiz, with her unconventional ways, dressing sense, name, and, of course, her magic, managed to set the third-form students in order on the first day itself, and from then on, the students took to her like several moths to a flame. They enjoyed coming to school and learning new subjects and topics, especially researching them, similar to the IB and IGCSE styles of education. Ms Wiz would also bring live pets, specimens, and animals to the class to demonstrate the topic of study or under study more elaborately and to the utter delight of the students. They especially loved it whenever Ms Wiz brought along to school her pet rat named Herbert. However, the students were warned by Ms Wiz never to divulge to the outside world about their magical world and that she was a witch or, rather, a paranormal operator. The students kept their promise. But the school authorities started smelling a rat, which would be more than just the occasional appearance of Herbert the rat, and so they started spying on Ms Wiz’s class. In turn, these teachers or other authority figures got turned into ducks, geese, pigs, et al., whenever they would try to meddle in the affairs of Ms Wiz and her third-form students. Nothing would stop the students of the third form from excelling in all their studies and extra-curricular activities. On the final prize distribution day ceremony, they were all in for a surprise when they realized that their favorite teacher of all time, Ms Wiz, would leave their school forever. They try to stop her but end up knowing that even without Ms Wiz’s magic, they can still be excellent math wizards, sportsmen or women, all-rounders, etc. Therefore, Ms Wiz, as a teacher or paranormal operator, only appeared when children needed extra magic in their lives to make their world a better place. Ms Wiz, after bidding adieu to them, took off into the sky on her vacuum cleaner, reminding them that they would once in a while see her again whenever they or their friends needed some magic in their lives.

    2. In Stitches With Ms Wiz

    In this novel in the Ms Wiz series, the third-form student Jack is suddenly caught with terrible pain in his lower abdomen. Since his parents were absentee nonchalant parents, they did not pay attention to Jack’s trouble, nor did his quite heartless new third-form homeroom teacher, a self-centered male named Mr. Bailey. Mr. Bailey even thought poor Jack was faking the pain in his abdomen due to an upcoming Math test. Finally, however, Jack was taken in an ambulance to the hospital when, on arrival, it was determined that he had a swollen appendix. It was so swollen that if he had come any time later, he would have been in serious trouble. Jack, however, made it and had his appendix removed in the absence of his parents and little sister. However, to his luck with his obnoxious surgeon consultant was another doctor who looked vaguely familiar to him. To his surprise and joy, he later realized that that doctor was his favorite third-form teacher, Ms Wiz. He was glad upon seeing her and wondered what a third-form teacher was doing in a general hospital helping out a surgeon! To that, Ms Wiz revealed that she was aware that this appendix surgery would be tough on Jack, and so she decided to turn into a fake surgeon to assist at his bedside during the operation. As she had mentioned in the earlier book, whenever her students needed a bit of magic to lighten up their lives, Ms Wiz would be there. She inadvertently converted the annoying Franklyn, Jack’s roommate, who managed to witness all the amazing magic that took place during Jack’s stay at the hospital to her form of teaching and magic. Meanwhile, Mr. Bailey, the self-centered new third-form teacher, realized that he had done a great injustice to Jack by mistreating him at school when poor Jack was truly having terrible abdominal pain, which later on turned out to be appendicitis. Mr. Bailey tries to set things right by visiting Jack in the hospital when his parents and little sister are around. Unfortunately, he ends up making an even greater fool of himself by eating up Jack’s appendix, thinking it to be the hospital’s rubbery food! This was done through the magic of Ms Wiz to teach the heartless third-form teacher a lesson. Along with cheering up Jack and Franklyn, attending to the needs of other lonely patients in the hospital, and flooding the hospital with a lot of white rodents due to not being able to locate the whereabouts of Herbert, the white pet rat of Ms Wiz, Ms Wiz managed to cause quite a ruckus in the hospital after which she made off on her vacuum cleaner. Jack made it out of the hospital, good to go, but Podge, his classmate who truly wanted to miss a Math test at school, taking a cue from Jack, also pretended to be having abdominal pain and tried to get into the hospital to be with Ms Wiz. When he, at the last moment, realized that Ms. Wiz was just about to leave the hospital and he would be alone to tackle the mean consultant surgeon in the hospital, he managed to save himself from being operated upon by getting off the bed and running for his dear life!

    3. You’re Nicked Ms Wiz

    In this novel, a little girl known well to Ms Wiz lost her pet cat over the school week. Her name was Lizzie, and she was in the third form at St. Barnabus School with the other third form students taught earlier by Ms Wiz. Mr. Bailey, the new third-form teacher, could not understand the seriousness of Lizzie’s pain being separated from her cat, Waif or Waify. He pooh-poohed her sorrow, which annoyed most of the students of the third form who were formerly students of Ms Wiz. However, Lizzie was not about to give up on her search for Waify, so she started putting up missing posters of him all over town and even personally tried looking for him herself. In the bargain, she met up with a female tramp who happened to be her former teacher, Ms Wiz, in disguise. Again, Ms Wiz had returned to help Lizzie find her pet cat with a little bit of her magic. The story goes on to indicate how Ms Wiz tried to save Waify from a set of mismatched cat kidnappers while the local police were under the mistaken impression that Lizzie had been kidnapped by a female tramp named Ms Wiz who was known to Jack and Caroline, her former students. Ms Wiz, to save Waify, turned Lizzie into a cat to creep into the lair of the kidnappers, upon which she realized that the cats’ fur was going to be used to make gloves for a soulless elite individual called Mrs. D’Arcy and then later would be killed. She tried notifying Ms Wiz about the same but was stuck in the lair because the foolish local police had nabbed Ms Wiz. Ms Wiz, after turning the local police force into white rabbits, then managed, with the help of Jack and Caroline, to head straight to the kidnappers’ lair to stop the malicious Mrs. D’Arcy from having her way with the innocent cats. With the aid of her magic, Ms Wiz manages to save Waify and the other cats, turn Lizzie back into a human being, make a human being out of a cat kidnapper, and renders Mrs. D’Arcy naked, which almost stunned the local police inspector into a state of hysterical laughter and shock at the same time. Thereby, Ms Wiz, as a tramp, proved helpful to her little friends when they needed her and her magic the most.

    Book Analysis

    “What is a teacher? I’ll tell you: it isn’t someone who teaches something, but someone who inspires the student to give of her best in order to discover what she already knows.”

    ― Paulo Coelho (from his book ‘The Witch of Portobello’)

    As mentioned in the introduction, Ms Wiz’s style of educating or imparting education to her students in the third form reminded me a lot about how a Cambridge or International Board Teacher or IB Teacher conducts herself. This is enshrined in the quote by internationally well-renowned author Paulo Coelho words in the quote I’ve mentioned above because a teacher like Ms Wiz teaches the student not only individual self-efficacy but also manages to create an ethically minded global citizen who can help in the sustainable development of the world and the cosmos through innovation, positivity and active participation in all forms of constructive technological advancement world over. These students then don’t remain merely students but turn into teachers in their own right who teach their skills to others, spreading wide the circle to create inclusion for all and sundry.

    The students of Form Three in St. Barnabus School were very ethically sound and could excel at whatever they needed to in life; they just needed that confidence and validation from an innovative teacher to gear them toward achieving their goals and fulfilling their ultimate potential already inherent in them. I think Ms Wiz, especially in the first book in this omnibus, namely, ‘Ms Wiz Spells Trouble’ manages to inculcate:

    1. The 12 IB or International Board Attitudes she wished her students to imbibe, namely:

    • Appreciation
    • Commitment
    • Confidence
    • Cooperation
    • Creativity
    • Curiosity
    • Empathy
    • Enthusiasm
    • Independence
    • Integrity
    • Respect
    • Tolerance

    2. The Five IB Skills a Student Needs to Change the World for the better, namely:

    • Thinking Skills
    • Social Skills
    • Communication Skills
    • Self-Management Skills
    • Research Skills

    3. She even incorporated the Cambridge Learners Attributes in her students, namely making her students:

    (i) Confident

    (ii) Responsible

    (iii) Reflective

    (iv) Innovative

    (v) Engaged

    4. She even strove to create various IB Learner Profiles within her third-form students to make them into internationally minded citizens who recognized their common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet, which would help create a better and peaceful world. These IB Learner Profiles are:

    1. Inquirers

    2. Knowledgeable

    3. Thinkers

    4. Communicators

    5. Principled

    6. Open-minded

    7. Caring

    8. Risk-Takers

    9. Balanced

    10. Reflective

    One can see and witness all this when one reads the three books in this omnibus. One could then easily think that the author and creator of the Ms Wiz series, Terence Blacker, probably knew something about the Cambridge and IB forms of education. Here are some examples from the various three books in this omnibus titled ‘The Crazy World of Ms. Wiz’ to illustrate the points put forward:

    Example 1:

    In the book ‘Ms Wiz Spells Trouble, ’ Podge was never known to be able to excel at any sporting event due to him being plus size. But Ms Wiz encouraged him to be a risk taker, which is part of the IB Learner Profile and created a lot of confidence, enthusiasm, and independence in him, which are essential IB Attitudes to undertake the many sporting events conducted by St. Barnabus School where he emerged as the undisputed winner of all the games, first with a little help via Ms Wiz’s magic and then all on his own. By the time Ms Wiz left at the end of the book on her vacuum cleaner, Podge had even stunned his indifferent and bossy parents by his capabilities as a sportsman.

    Example 2:

    In the novel ‘You’re Nicked Ms. Wiz’, because of the proper training done by Ms Wiz in the third form with her students, Lizzie was able to be empathetic, committed, and independent enough to turn into a risk taker to seek out her lost cat Waify despite the nonchalance of Mr. Bailey. Her love and commitment to the safety of her cat made her take on the responsibility of seeking Waify out herself. She was pushed to put up numerous posters of the cat all over town on her own, thereby incorporating not only a lot of IB Learner Attributes but also some of the major Cambridge Leaner Attributes, like being confident, responsible, and engaged.

    Example 3:

    In the novel ‘In Stitches With Ms. Wiz,’ the third-form student Caroline, studying with Jack, because of her empathetic nature, immediately recognizes that Jack is not fibbing when he states to Mr. Bailey that he is indeed getting a lot of discomfort and pain in his abdomen. She even coaxed Mr. Bailey to call the hospital, which showed her independent spirit, her risk-taking capabilities, and her confidence in dealing with a rather difficult homeroom teacher, not to mention that she was committed and responsible for the welfare of her friend Jack. If one had studied the previous novel in this omnibus, ‘Ms Wiz Spells Trouble’ then one would have realized that before Ms Wiz came into Caroline’s life, Caroline was a rather laid back and lazy student tending to always daydream in class and not having any reason to excel in her studies or other extra-curricular activities. After Ms Wiz inculcated in her a sense of direction and motivation, the class dreamer turned over the term into the class spokesperson and a very committed and talented student, especially falling in the category of an Independent Learner according to the IB and Cambridge theory of the four different IDEA Learners in a classroom. One would notice the witty Caroline later on giving Mr. Bailey a hard time for having driven poor Jack almost to the brink and creating, in turn, a comically guilty conscience in Mr. Bailey.

    Example 4:

    In the novel ‘Ms Wiz Spells Trouble’, we notice that at the beginning of the third form, Jack is an Emerging Learner in Mathematics. All his previous teachers treated him like a dunce, so he never developed his abilities in Mathematics any further. But when Ms Wiz came into his life and taught him Math through a lot of magic and some innovative teaching techniques, which involved a lot of kinesthetic and visual learning among the various types of learning techniques according to Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory, then Jack turned into a Developing Learner in Mathematics and then finally into such an amazing Independent Learner that at the Prize distribution ceremony it was he who won the award for outstanding performance in Mathematics in the whole school. Thus, Ms. Wiz developed in Jack a sense of confidence in himself and his mathematical capabilities, making him a risk-taker ready to reflect on his various approaches toward a sum. Then, he became highly knowledgeable and enthusiastic in this subject, which earlier used to be his bete noir.

    Further Points for Analysis

    Here are a few extra points one can analyze from a literary point of view from the omnibus titled ‘The Crazy World Of Ms Wiz’ by author Terence Blacker and illustrator Tony Ross.

    • Feminism

    One notices that Ms Wiz is a hard-core feminist who does not abide by the laws set down by patriarchal society, including in the way she wishes people and students to address her. She did not wish to be defined as a person by her relationship with a man, that is, through the prefixes Mrs. or Miss. She wished to be an independent woman, feeling that whether she was married or not was none of anyone’s business and did not define her as a teacher or a paranormal operator. She even refuses to use the word ‘witch’ to define her profession, which is indeed a negative patriarchally created sexist connotation to define a woman who knew magic. In the same context, a male who knew magic would only be termed a wizard or a warlock, both of which do not hold the negative connotations easily evident in the former term ‘witch’. She instead wishes to call herself something neutral, like a paranormal operator, where her gender would not define her capabilities as an adept in the art of white magic. Ms Wiz, a third form teacher, dresses oddly; she paints her nails with black nail polish, making herself look like a punk, wears, at times, black lipstick, is loud as a person, wears black heavy metal clothing to school and treats her students like one of her own little friends rather than her juniors and so her students were in awe of her and yet were very friendly and fond of her. One especially saw this in the book ‘Ms Wiz Spells Trouble’ on the sports field whenever Ms Wiz, like the students, would also jump up and down on her seat to cheer her students participating in the various races and games that day. Ms Wiz was never known to be living with anyone else and was always on her own with her China-figure cat Hecate and her white rat Herbert to keep her company. She knew how to make any space homely and comfy, as is shown in ‘You’re Nicked Ms Wiz’, where she even manages to make a tramp’s broken-down car into a haven of delights for herself, her pets, and her guest Lizzie. Ms Wiz was not bashful and bold in dealing with dangers and with tyrannical men who tried to put her down or with anyone who tried to harm her students. Her independent spirit, self-assurance, self-actualization qualities, and calm disposition make her an ideal feminist candidate worthy of emulation.

    • One Inconsistency

    In the book ‘You’re Nicked Ms Wiz’ one notices that when Ms Wiz is being dragged away from the kidnapper’s den by the police inspector, she does not use her magic then to turn them into white rabbits but waits for a full night to pass till she can do just this in the presence of Jack and Caroline, who technically were not needed for the magic act to take place. This she does even though Lizzie is in grave trouble as she was stuck in the kidnapper’s den as a cat in danger of being skinned off her fur and then killed with the other cats. I thought it to be a severe inconsistency on the part of Terence Blacker to have created this particular sub-plot twist in the story because it was not exactly needed for Ms Wiz to prove her innocence to the police at the cost of an innocent little child’s life. Ms Wiz could have, then and there, outside the lair, turned the policemen into white rabbits en masse. She could have gone on to save Lizzie rather than allowing herself to be dragged away and locked in prison. There was no question of a long-distance issue in this instance either because at least the police were near her, and she could have easily turned them into rabbits because of the proximity. I noted this inconsistency in the third book in this omnibus.

    • Note on Tony Ross’ Illustrations

    If one were to notice the Tony Ross illustrations in this omnibus titled ‘The Crazy World of Ms Wiz’, one would notice that Tony Ross followed a style similar to his drawings of the Horrid Henry Series by Francesca Simon. One can see the same dark blush red in the cheeks of Ms Wiz as it is in Horrid Henry, the more vibrant dark colours rather than the usual Quentin Blake style faded watercolor splashes as in the Roald Dahl books; one can also see the strong and well formed drawing lines rather than the sketchy and messy lines of the Roald Dahl books. However, as the series progresses, Tony Ross seems in a hurry or at odds with the author, for I see a certain hastiness in the illustrations to get the work done. There is no soul in most of the drawings therein though some were drawn with a deft hand, especially in the book ‘You’re Nicked Ms Wiz’, but there were many scrawls done in several places that were inconsistent with the overall illustrative style theme of this series as was shown in the first book ‘Ms Wiz Spells Trouble’. One would decipher that there was some acrimony between Tony Ross and Terence Blacker, as Tony Ross’ name is only mentioned as an afterthought at the back of this omnibus where the ISBN and ASIN are placed! That is not something done in a book where the illustrations play more of a plot guide than anything else and are the heart and soul of the various stories. I did not feel that was done in good taste either by Terence Blacker or by the publishers in question because, as an indie-publisher myself, I make sure to publish the name of my illustrator at the front of my children’s books, especially my books in the Rare Classics Series where I adapt and abridge rare classics for younger readers. It is not good publishing ethics to divert attention and credit due to the illustrator to the author of a juvenile fiction illustrated book or a PYP/MYP or Lower Secondary book, which took place here in this omnibus. Otherwise, the illustrations were good enough, just that they were a bit sketchy, inconsistent, and drawn in a hurry. Compared to the illustrations done by the same Tony Ross in the David Walliams books like ‘Demon Dentist’, ‘Awful Aunty’, ‘Ratburger’ or even something that I am reading recently, which is another PYP read titled ‘Dogbird and Other Mixed Up Tales’ by Paul Stewart, Tony Ross’ illustrations there are firm, neat, beautifully done and very poignant to the plot and not messy at all or drawn in a hurry.

    Conclusion

    As I mentioned, Ms Wiz reminded me a lot about myself as a teacher – not bashful, highly feminist, innovative, captivating for some reason, unconventional, loyal, highly principled, etc. That is why I took easily to her stories and felt that she is the epitome of what an IGCSE or IB teacher should be to create world citizens for the future. I identified very much with Ms Wiz, especially in how I relate to students as my friends more than my juniors or subordinates. I don’t appreciate that ‘talk them down’ attitude at all, and I prefer a comforting and friendly atmosphere in my classroom where there is a lot of communication but at the same time a form of discipline as well for the sake of classroom decorum and for the sake of maintaining peace for others to work in. Mind you, Ms Wiz was also of the same opinion and would not sacrifice decorum in the classroom for the sake of activity. Form Three at St. Barnabus could have fun, but Ms Wiz held them responsible for maintaining some discipline in the classroom. I may not be a paranormal operator, but I have unique ways of keeping peace and having fun, whether it be in a PYP, MYP, IGCSE, or IBDP classroom. Even if I am placed in a higher MYP or IBDP or A Levels classroom, I will make that classroom colourful and lively like a PYP classroom. Truly, I saw a lot of myself in the personality of Ms Wiz, and I hope to emulate her to a greater extent as the PGCITE course continues this year.

    Special Note

    If you are interested in more book reviews, indie author interviews, book analyses, short story analyses, poems, essays, essay analyses, and other bookish content, check out my blog, insaneowl.com. If you are interested in purchasing my books, you can check the products page of my blog or on Amazon. There is a lot of good stuff to buy! Happy reading to you always!

    ©2025 Fiza Pathan

  • ‘Fahrenheit 451’ by Ray Bradbury

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    Title of the Book: Fahrenheit 451

    Author: Ray Bradbury

    Publisher: Harper Voyager

    Publication Year: 1951 (this edition 2008)

    Pages: 192 pgs.

    ISBN: 978-0-0065-4606-1

    Age Group: MYP (Grades 6th upwards), IBDP & IGCSE (11th & 12th grades)

    Genre: 20th Century Contemporary Classic Science Fiction

    IBDP & IGCSE Subjects Covered: English Language, English Literature & Global Perspectives

    Review Written By: Fiza Pathan

    Introduction

    “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” -Ray Bradbury

    “There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.”

    -Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

    I read this book for the first time in 1998 when I was in the 4th grade studying at Bombay Scottish School, Mahim. I found the novel in the library’s science fiction section, along with the works of Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan, Frank Herbert, Ursula K. Le Guin, Arthur C. Clarke, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and my favorites—H.G. Wells and Jules Verne.

    I read the book in less than three days’ time. It was the unabridged edition, and the book made me a Ray Bradbury fan for a lifetime. Even in later years, whenever I would teach my ICSE students any English literature short story or novel focusing on the theme of science fiction, especially any text focusing on a dystopian era in the near future, I would always recommend them to read more of Ray Bradbury’s works than the clichéd famous ones, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. This was because Bradbury had more soul in his writings than the latter authors, which I required from my ICSE students who would be attempting a 20-mark essay question. But those were the days when kids used to read a lot. I would say that the trend continued even during the years when Gen Z youngsters were still in school, almost until 2015.

    Unfortunately, now everyone would agree, parents, teachers, psychologists, and educator researchers alike, that post-2016, kids have forgotten the value of reading in their lives and in their learning progress. In the IB Curriculum set up first in the year 1924, post-World War I by the League of Nations, the focus was on the individual self-efficacy of the students in the learning process. This indicated an essence of agency of the student in his own learning and being partners with the teacher and the IB or IGCSE school in the learning process. A great part of this individual self-efficacy everyone reading this book review would agree came from the fact that unlike most public schools worldwide, IB and IGCSE schools focused on the importance of reading books DAILY and constantly as part of this process.

    But alas, we have reached a stage globally in our current era where students today prefer not to read a single book all their lives post toddlerhood or kindergarten. They presume that gaining knowledge is much easier, faster, and more entertaining when it is obtained from documentary videos on YouTube, videos from WhatsApp University, which they are addicted to, or these days from ChatGPT, Grok 3, or even Perplexity AI. Because of this, the working individuals who have entered the market cannot stick it out long at their jobs. They hardly know the meaning of how to conduct themselves as white or even blue-collar workers who need to constantly update themselves and integrate their knowledge collected over a lifetime in their current job situation. These current Gen-Z working young adults have no sense of self-efficacy, let alone self-awareness or self-actualization. They are as highly distracted as they were when they were at school and college in their classrooms; they are demotivated, entertainment-oriented, and addicted to drugs, vaping, cigarettes, prescription drugs, gambling, alcohol, and other stimulants, especially party drugs to such an extent that their idea of refreshing themselves from the drudgery of reality is to zone out of reality with a recreational drug and not escaping into a new world like in a book, fiction or even non-fiction to see a new perspective on life and to improve their situation.

    Some students are trying to read, mostly books on self-help, Computer Science, Academics, Business Management, about how to make a quick buck by working the least hours in the day, etc., but even their numbers are dwindling as the years progress. We are, therefore, in a matter of four years going to reach a stage where Gen-Alpha individuals, once they graduate from school, won’t even know how to research their college assignments or dissertations at all – because they don’t read.

    By the time it is 2035, there will be Gen-Beta individuals in even worse situations, stating not that they ‘don’t’ read but something even worse – that they ‘cannot’ read. And this will happen even after 12 or even 14 years of school life! We are basically as the New York Times said about the book ‘Fahrenheit 451’:

    ‘Frightening in its implications…. Mr. Bradbury’s account of this insane world, which bears many alarming resemblances to our own, is fascinating.’

    – The New York Times

    It may have seemed ‘fascinating’ a century ago, but as we have entered the zone of what Ray Bradbury’s dystopian future was all about, it does not seem like the Earth will be a great place to be rooming in with young individuals growing into adults who cannot read and then obviously, not be able to write and then inadvertently be unable to reason and rationalize. It may seem hilarious to some of us who were around before even the time of the Millennials but for those of us who are teachers and who are seeing the trend of more students entering the 10th grade even after 12 years of school life and still being unable to read – the implications are indeed frightening to even conceive. It does not seem all that funny to us anymore. As concerned IB teachers, we are perturbed, and you should be as well.

    Because with more jobs being automated, new skills being created every day, and old jobs being rendered redundant by AI and other computer programming technology, it is more important for our young to update themselves even more than what we did back then in the year 1998 or even some of my early ICSE students before the year 2015. But that is not happening as Ray Bradbury creepily predicted in 1951 when the book I am reviewing today was first written and published. Instead, we are finding ourselves facing students in the classroom who are intellectually undernourished, have no conception of discipline, have zero self-initiative, have zero self-motivational drive, and prefer to entertain themselves through perpetual self-indulgence most of the time if not all the time to get into a zone where they can block out the reality of their situation and their responsibilities as citizens of this planet.

    We could soon, because of this scenario, enter, as Ray Bradbury stated, an era when the many Right-Wing governments and powers that are in control are forced to terminate our intellectual acumen altogether and, therefore, the reason that makes us human and different from the animal kingdom.

    We are entering a zone when books and education could be eliminated totally from the face of the globe.

    This will not be done through laws or government rules, dictates, etc. People will simply be unable to read anything put in front of them.

    Their being stuck in this perpetual zone of Tabula Rasa will spell the doom of the human race unless we take the reins of this crumbling fortress called our ‘reading culture’ in hand and can take up the messages implied in Ray Bradbury’s uncomfortably prophetic science fiction book to heart and change our future.

    “There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.” -Ray Bradbury (On Censorship)

    Synopsis

    ‘Ray Bradbury’s gift for storytelling reshaped our culture and expanded our world.’ -President Barack Obama

    (US president joins chorus of eulogies at the passing of Ray Bradbury in the year 2012 as HarperCollins announces plans for a memorial volume of ‘Fahrenheit 451’ by 26 celebrated authors as reported in The Guardian)

    The story begins in the year 2053 when human beings have forgotten how to read, and those who do know are banned from reading and teaching as well as from hoarding books. Those found with a library of books in their possession in that dystopian future set in the USA would have their houses and library burnt down in front of their eyes by firemen. These firemen would be almost illiterate, and their new job in this post-book age would be not to put out fires but to burn books. This was because homes had become fireproof because of a plastic sheet or screen placed over homes. With no job left to do, the Right-Wing powers that be and AI technology devised a new mode of earning for these firemen to keep the population of the world under control. They made the firemen of the future something akin to the Gestapo secret police officers who would burn homes containing books, even if there was one book in the house. This was to ensure that the masses remained perpetually passive, drowned in their obsession with excessive screen viewing and banal materialism sans common sense, but a lot of aggression in the bargain to kill off the aforementioned dispensable population in a highly advanced AI-automated future. Guy Montag was one such fireman who loved his job and regularly burnt books and homes. However, one day, he meets up with a young teenage girl called Clarisse, who initiates an urge to question the ‘why’ and ‘how’ and ‘what if’ of things and not merely be a passive observer in this deplorable world of 2053. He forms a cherishable bond with young Clarisse, who seems so unlike the other humans and aggressive and murdering youngsters of her generation. She looks different, and so do her parents and her Uncle Leonard, who was once picked up by an AI police car for being a simple pedestrian and wandering around the streets at night without any purpose in mind. He yearns to meet Clarisse every day before he heads to work, but one day, he learns that she has gone missing and soon realizes that she had been mercilessly run over in a fatal car accident by a super-fast car of the future driven by an intoxicated youngster no older than her. This news devastates Guy, and he starts pondering even more about the things little Clarisse told him and that she had done during her short lifetime. But then, one day, he is called to a mansion to burn a whole library of books that belonged to an elderly woman living alone in the mansion. He was astonished and numbed by shock to see that, unlike other book owners who would leave the house once the books and the house were burnt, this elderly lady saved the firemen the trouble by burning her house down right before them and remaining in the house.

    The house burnt down with her, her furniture, and her books. She did not want to leave her books alone. This shook the other firemen that day, especially Guy. As the elderly lady looked on accusingly at Guy as she burnt to ashes right before him, he grabbed the nearest book from the pile by her burning feet and fled back to the fire station. He could not understand what kind of a rational person would ever do something like this. He then realized something was fascinating and unique about the world of books.

    “There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.” -Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

    He then starts collecting and reading books. The book he saves from the burning fire in the elderly lady’s house is the Holy Bible, and with the help of an elderly Professor called Faber, he re-learns how to read and savor literature. But Guy’s wife, Mildred, is too attached to the ways of this bizarre and depraved dystopian world. She almost accidentally, like many others, tried committing suicide by ingesting too many sleeping pills while watching four television screens non-stop. She notices, along with two of her cronies, as depraved as she is, her husband’s collection of books. She, in turn, along with the other two depraved women, informed the fire station where Guy worked of the same, and then circumstances led to a situation where Guy was being forced by his sadistic boss, Captain Beatty, to burn with a flame thrower his own house and books. Guy does so but also burns Captain Beatty along with them and is therefore forced to flee. He is chased right across the town until the AI Police lose track of him, and he lands up with some academic outcasts of society living like gypsies in the outer forests of his land. These vagabonds were highly educated individuals who had been hiding in secret for years and were waiting for a time when they would be able to restore knowledge to a generation fed up with war. Even though they had no books, each knew one book verbatim and represented it to the others. Guy joins their forces and becomes the Book of Ecclesiastes from the Holy Bible. That is how Guy’s story ends, with him being inducted into a community that still hoped for a better tomorrow where human beings could read and write again. They were the living keepers of their planet’s ancient, diversified cultural history.

    ‘Fahrenheit 451’ Book Analysis

    “If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn.” – Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

    The seeds of this novel were first sown in the year 1950 after Bradbury wrote a short story titled ‘The Pedestrian’ and published it in a popular but still upcoming magazine of that time. With the popularity of ‘The Pedestrian’ Bradbury felt the story of ‘Fahrenheit 451’ coming to him, along with the help of four other science fiction short stories he had written around the same time about a bizarre dystopian future where pedestrians were not allowed to walk on the road and where books were burnt instead of read.

    ‘The Pedestrian’ is the story of an out-of-work writer who never had a single viewer screen in his home and preferred the outdoors to staying inside, especially at night. He once was walking late in the evening down the deserted roads of one of the cities of the dystopian USA when a single AI police vehicle accosts him. The AI Police Individual questions this writer about why he was out so late on the empty road, whether he did not have a viewing screen at home to entertain himself with, what his profession was, and what his real intentions were against the city’s peace. When the Pedestrian or the writer stated that he was a pedestrian and liked walking outdoors and did not have a viewing screen, the AI Policeman could not process his information in its algorithms and so decided to term the writer as a regressive deviant. He arrests the writer and takes him to an insane asylum, which is also a correction facility. They came across the writer’s home on the way to the correction facility. It was the only home that night where all the lights were on, and nobody was watching a viewing screen. When the writer informed the AI Police Individual that that was his home, his fate was sealed even further, and he was driven off to the correction facility.

    This writer’s name is revealed to be Leonard Mead, and he is Clarisse’s uncle, as mentioned in Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. He is reintroduced into the same setting of the dystopian USA city as the new neighbor of Guy Montag, the protagonist of the novel ‘Fahrenheit 451’. He resides in the new age home with French screen windows next to Guy’s home with his niece Clarisse and her parents. Clarisse mentions him many times during her lively and refreshing conversations with Guy, telling Guy that her Uncle Leonard was the person who thought most differently in her family and that she looked up to him. She also stated that the AI Police once picked up Leonard for being a simple Pedestrian, which even Guy finds peculiar, not to mention an invasion of privacy.

    This is how a link is established between the two stories by Ray Bradbury. Both the short story as well as the novel are indicative of a major 20th-century theme in science fiction where because of right-wing fundamentalism, probably in the form of a very regressive and puritan form of Christianity, especially Catholicism coming to the surface in the post-World War II scenario, USA would return to a very puritan form of government and would close its walls to globalization initiating a new dark age in their land. This would lead to the loss of civil rights, the ending of the egalitarian nature of government in that country, and the control of the population and its movements so that they would not share the country’s rich and abundant resources with other needy nations, especially those nations suffering from the negative consequences of America’s overuse and abuse of many natural resources. This angle is fully tackled even in the legendary Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ where the USA changes its country’s name to a more Biblically accurate but ironic one called ‘Gilead’.

    Thus, from the writings of Ray Bradbury and Margaret Atwood, among others, we realize that the USA would usher in a new dark age in the world in the post-truth era. It is living up to that deadly prophecy, as we can see in their current situation as a very volatile nation. ‘Fahrenheit 451’ talks of a time probably after the dust settled and when a Puritan form of government in the USA had already been established. Education had been revamped to be mere government propaganda. However, much a person studied at school, they landed blue-collar jobs more than any other kind of intellectual profession. Mind you, there is nothing wrong with blue-collar jobs. However, in this dystopian future, no blue-collar worker was expected to be interested in reading, writing, or improving his chances for intellectual growth. Anyone found to be with books would be deemed a traitor to the government, and his books, as well as his house, would be burnt by firefighters, who would be the new Gestapo of the land.

    Four hundred fifty-one degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at which books and paper start to burn, and Bradbury gives this painful title to his magnum opus, which he wrote in nine days’ time in a basement room of his local lending library when he was broke and the young father of a single toddler daughter and a young husband. He was young, not college-educated, and broke. He wrote magazine stories to keep his family afloat and delivered newspapers as a paperboy to make two ends meet and put food on the table. After getting the idea for ‘The Pedestrian’, the person of Leonard Mead conjured into Ray Bradbury’s mind the person of Guy Montag, his deranged and scatterbrained wife Mildred, his vengeful boss Captain Beatty and the evergreen dreamer of dreams that we wish were still a reality, Clarisse. He took it upon himself to complete his book and send it to the most encouraging publisher as quickly as possible. He finished the book in nine days, admitting in later years that he could have taken a few more days on it, but since he respected the young man that he was then, he later on in life and after a lot of success came his way refused to meddle or improve upon the book. The book was the outcome of his struggling years, and he always treated that period with the respect and honor it deserved.

    This novel serves as a prophetic warning to the world, but especially the USA, to curb its growing fascist tendencies, especially in the area of Christianity, or worse days endure. It is a warning to every thinking individual that to control a population, you don’t need to create rigorous laws, dictums, change the Constitution, etc. You just need to castrate the population into submission by getting them hooked on the negative effects of banal technology, and then they would no longer think and rationalize situations before them, therefore being easy to control and overcome without a fight. By reducing the population to mere screen time servers, a totalitarian draconian regime has already won the day with its own deluded population. A population that does not intend to think and read will not be a population that will care if books are banned or even burnt, and there is currently a very thin line between the two options in the current day USA.

    Prophetic Elements, The War That Never Ended and History Post the Cold War in Ray Bradbury’s ‘Fahrenheit 451’

    “I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.” -Ray Bradbury

    This richly layered science fiction book offers many prophetic topics. However, for the sake of condensing, we will focus on only a few.

    1. We have already discussed when books would be outlawed in the dystopian future. This would start because of the lack of initiative of the young in schools towards being interested in their own education. There would be individuals entering the job market who would be clueless, undisciplined, highly right-wing, and aggressive. This would start, as we can see in the book and in our own reality, with banning books and the ‘oversensitivity of community sentiments’ towards a particular book, story or poem centering on their ethnic or racial group. By curbing creativity and narrowing down free speech and free forms of expression, it would be evident that the powers that be would use this stoking of anger in the form of banning books mainly to kill individual intellectual creativity in the population. With the young not being interested in reading, it would be easy to start implementing the action of burning books and eliminating our past in the minds of the young and future residents. Because if not for our collected archaeological and literary resources, we wouldn’t be able to convince future generations about our shared past truths.

    2. In the book ‘Fahrenheit 451’, a brief history of what I would call ‘the war that never ended’ is given. This was done through the classic speech of Guy’s boss, Captain Beatty, when Beatty visited Guy at his home when, for the first time in his career as a fireman, Guy called in sick. Beatty mentions how animosity, especially in the USA, first started with the American Civil War of the 19th century, moving on to the First World War and then the Second World War. According to Beatty, the Second World War technically ended, but the animosity of different regions worldwide did not. The Cold War signified this and then culminated in the form of multiple mini-Third World Wars that erupted the world over because of the rise of Right-Wing Governments across the globe. Even when Guy burnt his house, constant battles and skirmishes in the sky through bombing were constantly going on in the novel. The aggression of the young stoked by totalitarian leaders who wish to keep the population in control and submissive found it best to keep on distracting the aggressive young by being involved in a number of mini-Third World Wars, as Pope Francis puts it in his speeches from the Vatican and in his encyclicals and apostolic letters. These mini-Third World Wars are indicative of the fact that the idea that war and aggression solve all problems did not leave the minds of human beings even after the cruelties of the Second World War and their infamous legacies, examples: the Holocaust, the Gas Chambers, the Warsaw Ghetto, Hitler’s Air Raid Bombs, the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the USA, Kamikaze Pilots, the bombing of Pearl Harbour, etc. That is why, in a way, the War never exactly ended; it just took on some grotesque forms that eradicated and defeated democratic values the world over and established the firm foundation of Right-Wing Nationalism, which led and, in our case, can lead to the shutting off of communication between nations, a situation akin to that after Bismarck’s regime and the situation in Europe before World War I. In his speech, Beatty beautifully brings this rare and crucial point forward regarding the far reach of deep-seated animosity and hostility. However, as even Professor Faber, Guy himself, and even the outcast academic community living in the forests stated, war does not solve problems; it aggravates them. It is certainly not the solution to end conflict and is the result of ignorance and a lack of proper authentic knowledge about History.

    ‘All war is a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal.’ -John Steinbeck

    (American Bestselling 20th century author and Nobel Prize Winner)

    ‘War does not determine who is right, only who is left.’– Bertrand Russell

    (British philosopher, logician, and public intellectual)

    3. Beatty’s speech or long monologue to Guy is considered one of the finest speeches in American letters. It simplifies and condenses history and predicts the future perfectly with the wisdom of a person who knows his World History. This is amazing to note because when Ray Bradbury was writing this magnum opus, he himself had not been to college because his family could not afford it. Instead, he spent years studying or reading various books in the library. Because he was poor, the librarian did not even allow him to take the books home, so after his regular paper route, he would spend the rest of his day and evening in the lending library reading up on various books. His reading was certainly erudite and eclectic as he managed to grasp certain aspects of World Philosophy, History, Politics, etc., which students in college don’t even grasp even after a double post-graduation! Therefore, we see the repeated theme of writing, books, and the value of libraries in all of Bradbury’s novels. While alive, he was very vocal in the USA about not closing down lending libraries and not censoring or banning books. He always believed that there was a very thin line to be crossed between banning books and burning books. Leonard Mead was a writer, and Guy regained his love for reading because of books collected from his burning missions. Ray Bradbury gained a lot from his library readings, proving that education does not mean college or university degrees but an unbiased understanding of the reality behind an event, respecting the perspectives and opinions of others, and trying to work towards a positive solution conducive to all parties. Therefore, more than bookstores, libraries were the keepers of the history of our human ancestry, and we could not afford to close down in droves.

    ‘The library fueled all of my curiosities, from dinosaurs to ancient Egypt. When I graduated from high school in 1938, I began going to the library three nights a week. I did this every week for almost ten years and finally, in 1947, around the time I got married, I figured I was done. So I graduated from the library when I was twenty-seven. I discovered that the library is the real school.’ -Ray Bradbury (In an interview on libraries)

    4. The Cold War was the defining feature of the greater part of the 20th century till the falling of the Berlin Wall in 1989 that ended that hostility. In 1950, when ‘Fahrenheit 451’ was being written, the USA was at the height of its Cold War with the USSR and its allies, and it was in this scenario of mistrust, Ray Bradbury penned the novel. Captain Beatty keeps on mentioning this time in his dialogues with Guy, which led to the rise of Totalitarian Regimes in the 21st century. The nuclear arms race, hoarding of nuclear weapons, the threat of nuclear wars, etc., are all of the major themes covered by Beatty and later Professor Faber when he conversed through his green ear-pod device with Guy.

    Female Characters In ‘Fahrenheit 451’

    According to the novel, most women were no longer educated in this dystopian future. This is not particularly analyzed further in the text, especially in understanding why Clarisse was then sent to school in any case and why a person like Mildred could read but could not remember how to. This is a slight contradiction in the text.

    Women were especially made submissive to the powers that be by forcing them to be addicted to their viewing screens, however banal the shows were. We see several aspects of acute ADHD in the personage of Mildred and her female friends when one reads the novel ‘Fahrenheit 451’. We see her unable to remember anything complex or even simplistic; for example, a neighbor told her about the news of Clarisse’s passing. Mildred also had a short-term memory issue and was more than just highly forgetful. She could not concentrate on one thing for long, let alone multi-tasking. Her intellectual capabilities were negligent, and she was highly self-indulgent, even at the cost of her marriage and life.

    Mildred reminds me of the people who populated the earth of the future in H.G. Well’s ‘Time Machine’ who were only pleasure-loving, self-indulgent, and could not use the advanced technology made by their former intellectual predecessors. Mildred reminds me a lot about what we all, male, female, others, etc., could become if we do not stop the deterioration of intellectual acumen in the minds of our young, especially Gen-Alpha and Gen-Beta. There is one clear solution to this, as evidenced by Ray Bradbury’s ‘Fahrenheit 451’; we need to lessen the screen time of the young drastically. Otherwise, what Mildred was we could become, and then it will be a given that we will not be able to handle our technology and so will have to succumb to the ruling of AI and our robots, who will be way smarter than we will ever be. Mildred was, as the book’s last part shows, unaware that a nuclear bomb had fallen on her city because, as Guy stated with pathos, probably she was too busy watching her four viewer screens in a hotel room to care.

    Like today’s younger generation, Mildred was also sans any emotions or feelings and was very suggestible, especially anything said to her through the viewing screen. Her sense of humor was skewed like those of the other women and men of her generation, and she was so addicted to her screens that she forced Guy to take several bank loans to pay for these viewing walls or screens in her house. She seemed more repulsive a character in the book than Beatty or the Hound could ever be.

    On the other hand, Clarisse was curious, inquisitive, a thinker, a dreamer, and highly creative. Her Uncle Leonard had warned her that her behavior would not go down well with the school authorities, so she always stated that she behaved this way because she was mentally unstable or insane. Guy misses these aspects of a woman in his wife and finds them all in young Clarisse. That is why her sudden and tragic death shook him to the core, especially when the news was told so offhandedly to him by the careless Mildred. Clarisse was the spark of hope and the spark that ignited a sense of feeling and interest in the being of Guy to ask deeper questions about his reality and about whether he was happy in the world in which he was living.

    Another crucial female character in this book is the elderly lady whose vast library was burnt and from whom Guy pinched or saved the Holy Bible. This Elderly Lady was highly well-read, well-educated, and a woman of letters, but she lived for reading, and when she realized that her library was going to be burnt, she did not wish to live in a world where there would be no books, that is, no intellectual work and so she felt it better to die with her library. With the death of innocent Clarisse, this elderly woman burning in front of Guy with accusing eyes looking his way unlocked in him the urge to question his reality which was given to him on a platter. He started his own intellectual revolution in honor of Clarisse and the elderly woman by starting with the help of his elderly friend Professor Faber to read the Holy Bible.

    The elderly woman was intelligent, emotive, loyal, determined, brave, compassionate, and highly patriotic toward the values of the past. All of this was missing in Mildred, whom Guy loved but wouldn’t miss if he was separated from her forever. The Elderly Woman and Clarisse meant more to Guy than Mildred ever could.

    IB and IGCSE Points In This Context

    ‘Fahrenheit 451’ could be an excellent tool for comparative analysis in English literature, especially for any IBDP Core Extended Essay Research Paper/thesis or dissertation. It would be useful to compare it to other dystopian science fiction books like George Orwell’s ‘1984’, Margaret Atwood’s ‘A Handmaid’s Tale’, Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’, Robert Hugh Benson’s ‘Lord of the World’, etc., and derive conclusive analysis accordingly.

    The novel can be used for further research and analysis in an IBDP TOK or Theory of Knowledge class based on individual rights, global perspectives on reading and books, the breakdown of what real education is, and how it could be unrelated to college and University degrees, etc. The Kath Murdoch’s Inquiry Cycle with the essential components of IBL or Inquiry-Based Learning can easily be adopted here with the help of this book through a research paper in a group or at the individual level.

    Book Review of ‘Fahrenheit 451’

    The book was suspenseful, haunting, moving, evocative, well-researched, and very much based on the reality we find ourselves in today. It is astounding to note that most of the post-World War II Science Fiction writers were able to forecast our present scenario so clearly and effortlessly in their evergreen fiction. One cannot help but realize that the futuristic predictions and prophesies of those writers living in the Cold War Era were more accurate about our reality than those of 21st-century science fiction writers.

    ‘Fahrenheit 451’ is a stellar work of literature, though it was written at the spur of the moment and may even outlast its creator’s fame. Like all of Ray Bradbury’s characters, the characters are larger than life and seem graphically real to us, compared to the incompletely formed characters of Isaac Asimov’s science fiction. Where Asimov was concerned, the scientific jargon was more important than the plot or characters, which was not so for Ray Bradbury. Though Asimov was found to be always critiquing the works of Bradbury, including ‘Fahrenheit 451’ even Asimov could not deny at times that Bradbury had a way with his narrative capabilities, which he and even Arthur C. Clarke could not surpass.

    Many layers of feelings can be peeled off the novel like one peels off an onion with haunting monologues or narrative monologues, a statement characteristic of Ray Bradbury’s literature. Readers won’t find it tedious to read because of the suspenseful narration and use of ingeniously crafted metaphors and references jotted throughout the book. Because of this, ‘Fahrenheit 451’ won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Special Citation.

    The novel’s interactions and dialogues are heart-wrenching and sometimes painful to read because of their uncomfortable closeness to the events in our present world. The dialogues, especially of the disillusioned Beatty, seem too hard to bear but too engaging and erudite to take one’s eyes away. One tends to want to read more of Beatty every time one turns the page of this novel, and the way he does not fight back or run when Guy burns him to his death with the flame thrower is something so haunting and evocative that it makes the reader gasp in shock and pathos. One cannot read a Ray Bradbury character without feeling for them, which is clearly seen in the novel.

    The book is alluring, colorful, a fast page-turner, and a must-read for everyone, especially children studying in the IGCSE and IB schools worldwide.

    Conclusion

    As stated before, this novel has many layers, but I’ve peeled back only certain aspects that can be used in an IB or IGCSE setting for further research and analysis. Usually, book critiques of the last decade of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century tended to demean this novel titled ‘Fahrenheit 451’ by Ray Bradbury, eulogizing the works of Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke more than anyone else. However, with the rise of hostilities the world over, literary critics are now appreciating books that earlier were not given their due place as international bestsellers of all time. Some of these books are George Orwell’s ‘1984’ and ‘A Clockwork Orange’ by Anthony Burgess. Both these two books have only recently been rediscovered and made popular again in the minds of modern-day readers, such as ‘Fahrenheit 451’. Where ‘1984’ was merely prophetic, ‘A Clockwork Orange’ was darker and more satirical, going like ‘Fahrenheit 451’ into the depths of the human psyche but not through narrative monologues that only skim the surface but through the entire plot and characterization of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ disturbing cast of characters.

    Today, it is difficult to get ‘Fahrenheit 451’ in bookstores and lending libraries because of its controversial nature. Even on online bookstores it is only primarily available on Amazon rather than on other much more reasonably priced online bookstore sites. Hopefully, the trend will change, and more readers will discover the magic of this novel that catapulted its author into the limelight of American Letters and transformed the way we write our science fiction books today.

    ©2025 Fiza Pathan

  • Book Review: ‘The Gruffalo’ by Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler

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    Title of the Book: The Gruffalo

    Author: Julia Donaldson

    Illustrator: Axel Scheffler

    Publisher: Macmillan Children’s Books

    Publication Year: 1999 (reprint edition 2014)

    Pages: 26 pgs.

    ISBN: 978-1-4472-7487-2

    Age Group: PYP (Grades 1 & 2)

    Genre: 20th Century Contemporary Animal Stories Classic (Board Book Format)

    IBDP & IGCSE Subjects Covered: English, Wellbeing, Reading

    Review Written By: Fiza Pathan

    Introduction

    A good book remains with you long after the book is shut, but a great book stays with you all your life. ‘The Gruffalo’ is a kind of book that was a sensation in 1999, when the first ‘The Gruffalo’ board book and hardback came out. It tells the story of a cunning and witty mouse who teaches us that even a Primary School storybook can be a form of a philosophical treatise through an ingenious plot and fiery climax. Who could ever think one PYP school animal story could have so many layers in one awesome and unique plot?

    This book brings to the forefront elements of psychology, sociology, logic, philosophy, and even stoicism, stunning readers both young and old with its complexity and depth. Unfortunately, the sequel to the first Gruffalo book did not meet up to the expectations of the fantastic first magnum opus of author Julia Donaldson and illustrator Axel Scheffler, but the first book was outstandingly done with illustrations worthy of a younger reader’s constant perusal over the years at a primary school.

    It is a book that even adults will appreciate and chuckle over. It reminded this reviewer so much of the elements of stoicism, especially in the light of the original teachings of Socrates told in the light of the writings of Stoicism’s founder Zeno and the writings of the Catholic favorite and Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. There is so much complex philosophical and stoical richness in this story that it not only entertains and regales adults apart from their primary school PYP wards, but it can also be a point of much ethical debate over the topic of perceptions and opinions of people who let the environment determine their emotions, and the imbalance of what Sfurti Sahare sports author extraordinaire calls the ‘monkey chatter’ in one’s head.

    If a perceptive individual or PYP student reads ‘The Gruffalo, ’ they will grow into rational thinking higher secondary students who will not let their opinion cloud the facts. They will grow into future IBDP TOK inquirers, which will be the highlight of their overall education at the International Board. They will not let the useless and banal opinions of others, which are not based on deductive reasoning and analytical evaluation, cloud their conclusive positive action-oriented analysis of a situation or global issue. I would certainly recommend this book to every PYP classroom the world over because it can surely change the lives of many curious inquirers in our IGCSE and IBDP schools globally, making them into well rounded ethically minded citizens who do not jump to conclusions but influence the opinions of others to steer towards a more analytical way of thinking and towards solving real-world problems on a mass scale. A PYP student will especially learn how to overcome their fears by changing how they perceive the people and situations they encounter.

    Synopsis

    This story takes place in a dark forest somewhere in the USA, as can be ascertained by the animal characters chronicling this colorful book’s board pages. A tiny mouse is on a journey through that forest and, on his way, meets a few predators that seek his life. However, they are amazed to hear from the shrewd mouse the information that he was supposed to go to meet a legendary and seemingly frightening creature known as the Gruffalo, for tea. What happens next and whether the little cunning mouse meets with the Gruffalo and has tea with him or turns into the Gruffalo’s tea is what the curious reader must find out by reading ‘The Gruffalo’. The story teaches the reader how to develop a number of the PYP transdisciplinary skills, especially effective communication skills, social skills, thinking skills, and most importantly, self-management skills, especially in the case of an emergency that needs impromptu quick thinking and calculative positive action to make one’s family, locality and the world a better place to live and breathe in.

    Analysis

    One can gain various intrinsic and extrinsic elements from ‘The Gruffalo’. One important factor was the topic of conquering one’s fear. But it is not merely about conquering one’s fear; in a typical IBDP TOK fashion, it is trying to question the nature of fear itself. ‘The Gruffalo’ analyzes:

    1. What does one fear?

    2. How are we conditioned to think of certain creatures as fearful and not others?

    3. How can one condition oneself to overcome this fear syndrome by thinking analytically and rationalizing fear?

    4. After rationalizing fear, how do you overcome it by making fear submit to you than you to it?

    This particular theme of fear aligns with the IB theme of trying to ‘know what we know’ in the TOK or Theory of Knowledge way. It is fascinating to see the cunning mouse deflecting his predators, namely the fox, the owl, and the snake, away from him by using their own conditioned prejudices and stereotypes about ‘creatures that they should fear’. He does this intelligently by referring to a character known as the Gruffalo. He paints a nasty picture of this so-called forest monster to the fox, the owl, and the snake, working on their worst individual fears, thus driving them away from him while he could go on for a stroll in the dark forest. Through the mouse, the author breaks down why we fear what we fear in a subtle and easy-to-understand manner.

    It is then further engrained in the minds of the curious readers when the actual Gruffalo appears ready to devour the mouse, who for a minute was caught off guard but immediately after regaining his composure, in turn, frightens the Gruffalo telling him that he (the mouse) was the most fearsome creature in the dark forest. When the Gruffalo accompanies the mouse back through the path through which it comes to the Gruffalo’s forest area, they meet up with the snake, the owl, and the fox. Seeing the mouse with the Gruffalo, they ran, flew, or slithered from sight, making the Gruffalo think that they were truly afraid of the mouse, and so he, in turn, got scared of the mischievous but wise mouse at the end of the tale. Again, in this instance, the reader questions why we fear what we fear and whether such fears are to incapacitate them or us or whether one should rationalize fear into oblivion from our system. This is beautifully seen in the main skeleton of the plot.

    Another theme evident from the text mentioned by the reviewer before in the introduction is the theme of stoicism in the light of the writings of Marcus Aurelius. For those of us who do not recall the writings or contribution of this great man of letters to philosophy and even, for that matter, Catholic and Christian Philosophy, let us recall to mind his teachings through some of these important quotes in the light of this board book ‘The Gruffalo’:

    ‘THE HAPPINESS OF YOUR LIFE DEPENDS UPON THE QUALITY OF YOUR THOUGHTS.’

    ‘IF YOU ARE DISTRESSED BY ANYTHING EXTERNAL, THE PAIN IS NOT DUE TO THE THING ITSELF, BUT TO YOUR ESTIMATE OF IT; AND THIS YOU HAVE THE POWER TO REVOKE AT ANY MOMENT.’

    ‘You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.’

    ‘Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.’

    ‘The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.’

    All these erudite thoughts of Aurelius are contained in his own magnum opus ‘Meditations’. It incorporates the value of critical thinking and makes the reader realize that what one fears is only a perspective on fear and not an actual reality. An actual reality would be when we purposely try to touch a burning candle with our bare hands. We then get singed because fire is a reality that can burn human flesh. Yet even with the metaphysics developed in the Yoga Sutras of Master Patanjali and the Kriya Yoga and Raja Yoga of Master Paramahansa Yogananda and Swami Vivekananda, not to mention the rigorous Raja Yoga of the Gospels of Lord Jesus and Lord Buddha, respectively, humans have even managed to contain or overcome such ‘fearsome’ objects as well. This can be incorporated into India’s new NEP Policy in ‘The Gruffalo’ teaching.

    So, everything is an opinion, which becomes a perspective and a truth for a human being. The mouse in this story had tweaked the system by not giving in to opinions and respecting various perspectives, that is, of the fox, the owl, the snake, and then the Gruffalo himself. To his advantage and for the greater good, the mouse then eliminated fear from his life in the forest by distancing himself from fear and deflecting it, thus securing a safe haven to live with peace and dignity in the society of the dark forest.

    This is because the wise mouse followed the sage principles of Marcus Aurelius to the core and did not let his life be determined by his thoughts, especially not his negative thoughts. As Aurelius stated,

    ‘The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts.’

    The mouse, as Lord Buddha said in his Gospel and the parable of the four wives, did not allow his three dominating wives, namely materialism, pride, or fear, to have a sway over him, but only his human wife or as nationally bestselling sports author Sfurti Sahare stated his human/rational monkey was only allowed to control him as mentioned before in this review. Also, the mouse, instead of seeing the first three predators and then the Gruffalo as an obstacle, used this ‘so-called’ obstacle as a solution to the problem of finding a safe haven for himself in the dark forest without fear or worry about predators.

    ‘The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.’

    –       Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)

    This quote or theory of Aurelius makes one realize that obstacles are only hidden opportunities that can lead one to one’s desired goal or success for the good of one’s community, locality, or country. Then, the opportunity becomes the way forward, leading the person onward by making him rich with fortitude, experience, and wisdom. Even if the obstacle is a so-called failure in an exam, that does not indicate the real meaning of failure by analysis. As IB and IGCSE students know, failure is not about falling but about remaining where one has fallen. We have to learn from our mistakes and learn from the obstacles in the form of challenges that beset us. The mouse indeed saw each predator as an opportunity to gift him, and all others technically vulnerable like him, a way towards living peacefully in the dark forest.

    Through the little mouse, IB and IGCSE PYP students can learn the many more explicit and implicit meanings hidden in the text of the Gruffalo. Some are listed below:

    1. Explicit Meanings:

    • How to overcome fear
    • How to be daring or a risk-taker
    • How to become a great communicator
    • How collaboration, even with the opponent, can lead to a desired good consequence, such as the mouse teaming up with the Gruffalo to prove that the former was more fearsome than the latter.
    • Metaphors galore

    2. Implicit Meaning:

    • The Stoicism of Marcus Aurelius
    • Reverse Psychology
    • How to know what we fear and why we fear
    • To undo negative conditioning regarding fear stereotypes and prejudices.
    • How to tame one’s negative emotional monkeys.
    • How one can use an obstacle in one’s path to move forward instead of letting it remain as an obstacle.
    • How to use one’s creative thinking abilities for the greater good.

    Personal Message

    I thoroughly enjoyed the book but cannot get enough of it. I can see so many more implicit layers hidden within the fold of this rich and unique plot that I could spend days theorizing or writing a thesis on the topic. I also found so many elements of epistemology in this book that it is unbelievable! Unfortunately, time is not on my side, so I have only recorded here on my Portfolio a few of the themes I have gleaned from the text.

    I found the book to be engaging, colorful, and poignant. It was chuckle-worthy even for an adult, and I can surely see many students benefitting from this book, especially in thinking out of the box. The illustrations were done simply like a typical 1990s Ladybird book illustration, which was befitting for the plot because the story itself was more of a focal point than the illustrations. As a fan of Quentin Blake and Tony Ross, I would have loved it if the book had been illustrated in their iconic style, as seen in Roald Dahl and David Walliams books, which they both illustrated. It would not have sounded so serious, and it would have added a more humorous touch to the story; but then again, it is just an opinion and perspective, not a value-judgement on the book itself. The illustrations are in the classic mold, which worked well in 1999 to perfection.

    The author considered this an exceptionally brilliant tour de force story that PYP children and their parents can easily lap up.

    Conclusion

    Par excellence, tour de force, captivating, suspenseful, and erudite nevertheless is what I would call ‘The Gruffalo’. It was rewarding also to read the second part of the sequel to this first book in the Gruffalo series, but unfortunately, the sequel does not match up with the stellar first book. However, the illustrations in the second book, ‘The Gruffalo’s Child’, were done beautifully and much better than the illustrations in the first. Those who wish to meet up with the old characters and see how they look in a beautiful winter setting can easily invest in the second book and savor a bit of the memories of the first.

    Special Note

    If you want more book reviews, indie author interviews, book analyses, short story analyses, poems, essays, essay analyses, and other bookish content, check out my blog, insaneowl.com. If you are interested in purchasing my books, you can check the products page of my blog or on Amazon. There is a lot of good stuff to buy! Happy reading to you always!

    ©2025 Fiza Pathan

  • Book Review: ‘Good Talk’ by Mira Jacob

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    Title of the Book: Good Talk

    Author: Mira Jacob

    Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

    Publication Year: 2018

    Pages: 355 pgs.

    ISBN: 978-1-5266-3159-6

    Age Group: IBDP & IGCSE (11th & 12th graders)

    Genre: Graphic Novel Memoir

    IBDP & IGCSE Subjects Covered: Global Perspectives, Sociology, Wellbeing, English language & English literature

    Review Written By: Fiza Pathan

    Introduction

    ‘Good Talk’ by Mira Jacob is a searing social issue graphic novel-cum-memoir, which focuses on the topic affecting the USA in particular as we speak – immigration policies as an offshoot of age-old racial tensions. Whatever may be the outcome of the scenario we are finding ourselves in today, even as Indians from India, through the actions of the US Government, one thing we can be sure of is that as IBDP and IGCSE teachers, we have to realize that diversity should create unity amongst various ethnic races through inclusion and respect for each other. They should not be a source of division amongst IBDP or IGCSE school students. Instead, differences should be celebrated rather than abused or discriminated against, especially in the form of government policies that harm the inclusiveness of any nation.

    Besides, it is a well-known fact that most IBDP and IGCSE students who will be entering the foray of education post-2025 will be immigrants or even refugees, especially now after the long, drawn-out wars between Ukraine and Russia as well as Gaza/Palestine and Israel, not to mention the never-ending tensions taking place in the Middle East, especially in areas like Iraq and Syria. Racial tensions in other Third World Countries like Uganda, Nigeria, Ethiopia, etc. are also places where young students are rescued from being initiated into child labour, child prostitution, and, most importantly, domestic terrorism and tribal warfare. Most of these students are rescued and then educated away from their families and parents under the tutelage of IBDP and IGCSE-run institutions that cater to their educational needs in the light of an inclusive and integrated form of education.

    Therefore, we cannot afford, as a global family, to differentiate between different ethnic groups, races, religions, et al., because then we are creating animosity in the hearts of young individuals who have already gone through a lifetime of war and hatred which will simmer under our own animosity towards them, leading to more violence and wars not to mention racial tensions in the coming years and decades.

    During times like these, books like the graphic novel ‘Good Talk’ come in handy as a great educational tool to educate the 11th and 12th graders about the challenges of stereotypes based on race, gender, and region. It speaks about how to overcome prejudices with hope and love despite the indifference of loved ones, even in one’s own immediate family, because of a mixed-race marriage. It teaches the student about immigration during the 20th century, how NRIs have contributed to the economy of First World Countries like the USA, and how most Indians are an asset to any nation where they reside because of their dedication to their studies and their persevering nature, not to mention their great entrepreneurial abilities.

    Synopsis

    Mira Jacob’s family immigrated to the USA early in the 20th century as Mira’s father was a surgeon and wished to be educated in the USA and work there for better prospects. He married Mira’s mother in a traditional Anglo-Indian Christian arranged marriage and had two children with her – Arun Jacob and the author, Mira Jacob. However, the family, especially dark-skin-toned Mira, had to experience many forms of racism during the whole course of their lives together in various parts of the USA. But nothing was worse than when Mira fell in love and married a White Caucasian American Jew. The memoir goes on to depict her life as the daughter-in-law of two rich and haughty White Republican Jews living in Southern USA and how she manages or does not manage to toe the line between being a daughter-in-law and being a human being with feelings and emotions like other White Americans. The book is an educational tool for her son, who, though a Jew, looks every bit like his mother, including in her dark-tanned skin tone and how he would have to cope with the discrimination he was seeing in his own paternal family on an everyday basis.

    Analysis

    ‘Good Talk’ by stellar author and memoirist Mira Jacob is a must-read for all teachers and students dealing with the 11th and 12th grade curriculum, especially those who have taken the subject GP or Global Perspectives. Mira Jacob gives the reader an excellent bird’s view not only into the mind of her younger self when she was growing up in pre-9/11 USA but also into the mind of her seven-year-old son who was growing up during the time before the 2016 US Presidential Elections. On the topic of differentiating the ‘fact’ from the ‘opinion’, this book does a great job in analyzing that, especially in the case of Anti-Semitism, discrimination post 9/11, discrimination against anyone with a tanned or brown skin tone, and the surprisingly recent taboo topic of inter-racial marriages post the Trump Era.

    We see the evolution of the thoughts of both young Mira and young Z, her son, as the USA progresses to becoming a nation that was sleepwalking as it were through its nagging racial issues and crises. The various global perspectives of the White American friends of Mira and her doting husband Jed, Mira’s in-laws and their White racist, elitist friend circle, and the thoughts of other Black Americans of the USA, NRIs, etc. make this book into a great tool for analysis, collaborative discussions, and debate.

    An IBDP student can quickly develop an understanding of the politics of race in the USA under the eye of the powers that be like billionaires, millionaires, the Roman Catholic Church, White elitist land owners, etc., and can then critically think about how to resolve and solve such differences in the 21st century. In the realms of Sociology, this book can act as a great icebreaker concerning the topic of inter-racial marriages and inter-religious harmony. Mira Jacob, with her wry sense of humor and the jokes of her little son Z, has managed to explain difficult concepts like hierarchies, patrilineal families, sexual assaults on the basis of race, ethnocentrism, etc., in a lucid and easy-to-comprehend manner. I even appreciated the fights between Jed and Mira merely because they were at their most vulnerable, where things that would otherwise have been difficult to say were said and analyzed very easily. For example, when Jed sees an annoying White racist radio show host as merely ‘a creep’, Mira considers that same host as her perpetual ‘White Competition’, to whom she has to prove her worth over and over again while living in the USA. She had been, in a way, ‘living in’ with this radio host for a much longer time than she had been residing with her husband, Jed.

    The way Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, was used in a creative and very colorful, not to mention nostalgic, way to bring out the pros and cons of ethnocentrism, especially shown by Z, was done brilliantly and with style. Certain comical scenes and questions that would crop up in the mind of a curious seven-year-old, a fan of the King of Pop who was apparently suffering from vitiligo, which made his skin color turn from black to white, was also taken up in an interesting but dignified way in the book.

    Where English literature is concerned, I would compare this memoir of Mira Jacob to the current international bestseller ‘The Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East’ graphic novel series by French illustrator and memoirist Riad Sattouf as well as ‘Persepolis’ by Iranian illustrator and memoirist Marjane Satrapi. They have the same subtle humorous narrative qualities, the ingenious use of a variety of unique analogies to describe feelings and emotions never expressed before, and the pop-art color scheme of the graphic illustrations are almost in the same style, highlighting elements that Mira Jacob wanted to put a lot of emphasis upon. Examples: Her being racially discriminated against in her own family due to being more tanned than her elder brother Arun, or emotions expressed in her son Z’s face and silence when he knew that his paternal grandparents did not believe that dark-skinned boys like him were harassed over the color of their skin.

    The narration was free-flowing with variations in tone and severity compared to the suspenseful ‘Persepolis’ or the casual but highly entertaining ‘The Arab of the Future’. It is not news reportage in the style of Guy Delisle but social reportage done with more ferocity in certain places. The second half of the book can be a heart-wrenching read that can make the reader shed a tear or two, if not more, after seeing the current scenario in the USA. Mira Jacob, therefore, has been highly prophetic through this book titled ‘Good Talk’ about the immigration issue. The book seems uncomfortably real in all its dangerous aspects that can give the IBDP learner a lot of food for thought regarding how they were going to tackle this international deportation issue and the sustainable development procedures that can be developed in spite of the possibility of the economy of the USA collapsing in a matter of three years.

    Conclusion

    Elegant, forceful, witty, and poignant are the words I would use to describe this book by internationally bestselling Indian American author Mira Jacob. The first major part of the book could have been spruced up a bit, but the second half of the book leaves the reader spellbound and stunned nearly at every turning of the page. By the end of the book, one is contented that hope in the form of responsible and curious citizens of the future, like the inquiring IBDP and IGCSE students of the 21st century, will not allow divisive forces to shake the equanimity in society and the progress towards a more sustainable future where we all live together in harmony and follow the spirit of inclusion and not inane exclusion. In the words of the American voting and women’s rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer:

    “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

    Special Note

    If you are interested in more book reviews, indie author interviews, book analyses, short story analyses, poems, essays, essay analyses, and other bookish content, check out my blog, insaneowl.com. If you are interested in purchasing my books, you can check the products page of my blog or on Amazon. There is a lot of good stuff to buy! Happy reading to you always!

    ©2025 Fiza Pathan

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