Hairs in the Palm of the Hand

Jan Mark describes the sort of school where a teacher threatens to pull the arm off an annoying pupil and hit him with the wet end of it and where, according to the children, it's ratburgers for dinner. With words like 'nebulous' and 'obliquely' slipped easily into the narrative, the stories combine a gutsy contemporary style with a demanding vocabulary. Tony Robinson's narration captures the humour of the teachers' sarcasm and the pupils' back-chat, making funny and lively listening.