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Home > Translation > The World Bookshelf > Books > School Blues

School Blues

Novelist Daniel Pennac worked for many years as a teacher in Paris, working with children with learning difficulties. In his memoir, School Blues, he expresses, amongst many other things, his concern at the increasing and insidious influence of advertising and consumerism on children and the schools they attend.

School Blues grapples with the challenges of a multicultural society and education, going beyond the polemics of immigration and socio-economic disadvantage to explore the many facets of schooling: how fear makes children reject education; how children can be captivated by inventive thinking; how consumerism has altered attitudes to learning. Haunted by memories of his own turbulent time in the classroom, Pennac enacts dialogues with his teachers, his parents and his own students, and serves up much more than a bald analysis of how young people are consistently failed by a faltering system. School Blues is not only universally applicable, but it is a work of literature in its own right, driven by subtlety, sensitivity and a passion for pedagogy, while embracing the realities of contemporary culture.

Author

Daniel Pennac

Daniel Pennac

Books

School Blues

Diary of a Body

Daniel Pennac was born in 1944 in Casablanca, Morocco. Educated in Southern France, he struggled at school, but his love of literature inspired him to persevere. He later became a secondary school teacher in Nice, France, experimenting with varied and unusual techniques. As a teacher, Pennac was determined to provide the support to young pupils that he was denied as a child.

His first book for children, Le grand rex, was published in 1980. He has now published over 30 books, including novels for both adults and children, comic-books, picture-books and essays. Many of these have been translated into more than 30 languages. In 1990, Le petite marchande de prose was named one of the best novels of the year by Le Figaro, and Pennac won the Prix Inter. Pennac has worked with renowned illustrator Quentin Blake on numerous occasions, producing masterpieces such as The Rights of the Reader.

Translator

Sarah Ardizzone

Sarah Ardizzone

Books

Dreams from the Endz

School Blues

Vango: Between Sky and Earth

Alpha

Sarah Ardizzone has translated forty-something titles from the French, winning several awards – including the Scott-Moncrieff Prize for Just Like Tomorrow by Faïza Guene. She has a special interest in translating sharp dialogue, urban and migrant slang, and in what the Congolese writer Alain Mabanckou calls “a world literature in French”. Sarah appears regularly on the book festival and live literature circuit, and curates educational programmes around translation – including Translation Nation, Translators in Schools, The Spectacular Translation Machine and The Big Translate.

Published by

The MacLehose Press, 2010
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Novelist Daniel Pennac worked for many years as a teacher in Paris, working with children with learning difficulties. In his memoir, School Blues, he expresses, amongst many other things, his concern at the increasing and insidious influence of advertising and consumerism on children and the schools they attend.

School Blues grapples with the challenges of a multicultural society and education, going beyond the polemics of immigration and socio-economic disadvantage to explore the many facets of schooling: how fear makes children reject education; how children can be captivated by inventive thinking; how consumerism has altered attitudes to learning. Haunted by memories of his own turbulent time in the classroom, Pennac enacts dialogues with his teachers, his parents and his own students, and serves up much more than a bald analysis of how young people are consistently failed by a faltering system. School Blues is not only universally applicable, but it is a work of literature in its own right, driven by subtlety, sensitivity and a passion for pedagogy, while embracing the realities of contemporary culture.

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