Turning the tables in Ten Delicious Teachers

August 5th 2021

The biggest mistake people make when discussing kids’ books is to assume every story MUST have a moral lesson in it: that children must come out of it improved in some way. Do adults only read to be enriched? No – sometimes we read for sheer enjoyment. Children don’t always need books to remind them of the value of sharing, or an explanation of why it’s right that everyone tucks their chairs in. Sometimes, kids just wanna have fun.

When I was a teacher, my favourite read-aloud books were the ones that were just plain silly. Two key examples come to mind – the Book with No Pictures by B. J. Novak is a RIOT to read with kids, as the hapless reader is teased mercilessly by the very book they’re forced to read aloud. But I’ll never get over seeing the explosive response to Little Rabbit Foo Foo by Michael Rosen and Arthur Robins when I saw it read to a nursery class. In the book, naughty Little Rabbit Foo Foo runs around the forest, bopping things on the head. The Good Fairy warns him that if he keeps doing it, she’ll turn him into a goonie. Little Rabbit Foo Foo doesn’t listen, and so he gets turned into a goonie. That’s it, that’s the story. But I cannot describe the reaction that the final image of Little Rabbit Foo Foo, transformed into a ludicrous goonie, had on this nursery class. I honestly thought they were going to riot – it was like The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show.

There’s no lesson in Little Rabbit Foo Foo – children see a character being naughty and then see them getting punished. If kids know anything, it’s that rules are important and they must never, EVER be broken – and for that reason, they’re hungry to experience the idea of transgression and the consequences of it. There’s no safer place to do that than in fiction, led by someone they trust, ideally by an adult who isn’t afraid to make themselves look a little bit silly. It’s a perfect model for kids, to see how a grown-up can be in charge and still be teased a little. It can be hard to set boundaries around that, but that’s exactly why it’s so important to do it: children need to see how you can be silly.

This is exactly what I wanted to do when I wrote Ten Delicious Teachers, my new rhyming picture book. It’s the story of ten VERY foolish teachers who, after missing the last bus home, decide to take a shortcut through the forest … without realising that there are ten very naughty, very goofy, VERY hungry monsters lying in wait for them! It’s a backwards counting book, so you follow the teachers as they get snaffled up one by one on their journey home. Ten delicious teachers … then nine delicious teachers … no wait, eight delicious teachers … before the end, when the monsters have the tables turned on them.

As an author, you always imagine how your books will be read. Sometimes you picture a child sitting engrossed in a corner, frantically reading on to find out what happens next. Sometimes you imagine a parent reading to their child at the end of the day, a lovely quiet moment shared together. With Ten Delicious Teachers, I always visualised it being performed by a teacher reading aloud to their class, shocked and outraged by the behaviour of the naughty monsters – the children howling with glee as the hapless teachers, so totally out of control for once, are made to look silly instead.

Children don’t really want teachers to be toppled from their perches, of course – they need, and want, the boundaries you set them. But just for a few moments, they like to imagine a world without rules, roar with laughter, and then have you back in charge once more, telling them off for not tucking their chairs in.  

Ross Montgomery

Ten Delicious Teachers is out now.