About SO WHAT! STORIES or WHATEVER!: Hilarious and Poignant Tales from the Classroom (So What! Series Book 1) by G J Griffiths:
… “HILARIOUSLY FUNNY ONE MOMENT AND THOUGHT PROVOKING THE NEXT!” “POIGNANT AND GRAPHIC TALES – WITH AN UNEXPECTED TWIST.” “NICE TO KNOW YOUR PUPILS GOT YOUR BACK WHEN YOU NEED IT!” … “… LAUGHED SO HARD I WAS ACTUALLY CRYING DURING PART OF THE BOOK…” “THIS ACCURATE LOOK AT SCHOOL LIFE BROUGHT BACK MANY MEMORIES OF MY OWN TIME!” “A BOOK FOR PARENTS AND TEACHERS – AND MAYBE THE PUPILS!” These stories from the classroom will have you laughing or weeping – sometimes both in the same minute! Whether student, teacher or parent you will wonder: How do they survive? Waterloo Road or Grange Hill meet Gervase Phinn – well maybe! Readers of this book will have to admit that the stories about its characters will stay in your memory for a long time. With over twenty years teaching experience behind him, G J Griffiths has brought to the reader some of the stories about the children he taught, in this amusing and often inspirational book. Without exception everyone will recognise the characters and their captivating tales. All through the book we are made aware of the joys and disappointments experienced by the pupils and their teachers: Mr Jeffrey and his colleagues. With the ever-present controversy about changes in the education system this is a timely illustration of what is to be found in the classrooms of the contemporary High School. The book tends to concentrate in the latter part on an unpleasant boy Kyle, who is a bully, and his effect on two other boys, Adam and Nigel Shantra. Unknown to Mr Jeffrey he also affects the way his teaching job changes at the exact time that Robert really feels he has become a “good teacher”. The three paths of Nigel, Kyle and Robert Jeffrey converge several years later in the last chapter. Look out for an unexpected twist in this amusing collection of school stories that “should be made required reading for every student teacher!
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Author Bio:
G J Griffiths is a retired science teacher, with some early working experience of the photographic industry, who greatly enjoys being a grandad. Born in the UK he enjoys reading most genres of fiction such as sci-fi, crime/detective thrillers, historical and wildlife stories. Non-fiction reading mainly includes scientific or historical books. Walking in the English, Scottish or Welsh countryside with binoculars ready for bird-watching or other wildlife is a particular pleasure. Seeing badgers and otters in the wild recently was an exciting first.
His first novel was Fallen Hero. The So What! series of three books followed and these are all focussed around the fictitious Birch Green High School. They include: book 1, So What! Stories or Whatever!; book 2, So What’s Next! and book 3, So What Do I Do? Each book is quite different in its overall context, e.g. a collection of the teachers’ experiences; the creation of a school nature corner; and arson, fraud and murder investigated by detective Shantra, an ex-pupil from BGHS!
More recent works include poetry: Dizzyrambic Imaginings; two illustrated children’s sci-fi stories about ant-size aliens, Ants in Space and They’re Recycling Aliens; and a historical fiction based upon real characters from the Industrial Revolution period, called The Quarry Bank Runaways.
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