31 Oct 2011 09:00:14
Robert Muchamore's Cherub series has sold 3m copies in the UK alone, so the author was surprised, to say the least, when he was told that they were being banned from a north London school.
Muchamore, who lives in nearby Crouch End, was lined up to speak at Highgate junior school in mid-November, but was informed this month that his appearance had been cancelled and his books removed from the junior school's library following complaints from parents. "Highgate School invited me to do an event, then decided [to] read my books first and promptly banned them. Tossers..." the bestselling author wrote on Twitter.
"I suddenly got an email saying we don't want you to come in, and we have taken the books out of the junior school library after a couple of parents complained," he said today. "It only takes one busybody parent to complain and they have to react to it – that's the sad thing."
The independent school is currently on half term, but head Adam Pettitt confirmed to his local paper that two families had asked the school "to look more closely" at Muchamore's books. "Having done so, we took the view that they were more suitable for the senior school age range than for the whole of the junior school age range where pupils as young as seven have access to the stock," he said.
The author had been scheduled to speak to years five and six, the oldest in the junior school. "It didn't make sense to invite Mr Muchamore to the junior school given this decision. Ideally we would have made these checks before extending the invitation, and we are sorry that Mr Muchamore has been inconvenienced," added Pettitt.
About a group of orphaned teenage spies, the Cherub books include violent scenes, teenage sexuality and plotlines involving prostitution, drug dealing and, in Muchamore's latest, People's Republic, human trafficking. "I always call it the Eastenders test – that broadly speaking nothing happens in my books that doesn't happen in an episode of Eastenders," said Muchamore. "I'm always reluctant to have age ranges on books because kids vary so much. But maybe 20% of nine-year-olds would like to read my books, 40% of 10-year-olds and 80-90% of 11 to 12-year-olds."
