The Abominables

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As part of our learning, we got active and did a Burn2Learn assault course on the field to try and recreate the assault course Tim and 'The Tigers' have to do in the story. Ibbotson probably wrote the novel in the 1994, and did not wish for it to be published as it was not the kind of ghost story she usually wrote. I am a little unsure on my age recommendations as I think readers around 8 and older would be my best guess.

Abominables Theme | Salesbury Church of England Primary School Abominables Theme | Salesbury Church of England Primary School

Instead of freaking out, like I would do, she falls in love with the yeti's children and decides to stay and be their mother. Time passes and Agatha grows to be very old, while the yetis are still quite frisky and young (they live an exceedingly long time).It also carries a strong message about the need for humans to leave nature alone and especially to protect the survival of all kinds of endangered species – real and imaginary! Although it has been finished by her son, this has all the familiar ingredients of a trademark Ibbotson tale: it is warm-hearted, funny and full of magical imagination.

Summer 2 - The Abominables | Westwood Primary School Summer 2 - The Abominables | Westwood Primary School

On the other side of their valley, the Evil Materialistic Humans build an ostentatiously ornate resort. Lady Agatha is only a girl when she is snatched from her tent, camping in the mountain with her loving father. There is a weird preachiness about showing the yetis the bible and teaching them hymns, while making pretty inelegant statements about how bad rich people are and how they will exploit nature and animals, while not being off-base there’s just an odd saviorism of the distinguished British lady civilizing the too kindly and innocent yetis.The kids lost interest in this around the halfway point, although they started off quite interested. A century ago, while accompanying her father on an expedition in the Himalayas, a very young Lady Agatha Farlingham was kidnapped.

The Abominables - Whole Class Reading Session! The Abominables - Whole Class Reading Session!

I also loved the topic of being kind to all creatures and that hunting for sport is quite disgusting. When Agatha is kidnapped by a gigantic hairy monster on a Himalayan mountain, she soon discovers that the yeti is clever and kind. Eva's books for older readers (12+) include: The Morning Gift, A Song for Summer, The Secret Countess, A Company of Swans and Magic Flutes. A hundred years ago, in the Himalayan peaks of Nanvi Dar, the daughter of an English earl is kidnapped by a huge hairy monster.I love that: when the kids in the story seem to have few impositions on their time, no team sports, or lessons, just plenty of time to come up with both problems and solutions on their own. At the same time, Con, Ellen, and the truck driver they enlist are all wonderful people, as are the others who eventually help the yetis. She attended Bedford College, graduating in 1945; Cambridge University from 1946-47; and the University of Durham, from which she graduated with a diploma in education in 1965.

The Abominables by Eva Ibbotson | Goodreads The Abominables by Eva Ibbotson | Goodreads

We did lots of Burn2Learn and Imagineering work thinking about the different parts of a story and how to make it really interesting for our reader. These whole class reading sessions aim to develop children’s comprehension skills, whilst introducing them to the novels of popular children’s author Eva Ibbotson.It also contains a vocabulary check immediately after the extract is read to clarify any unfamiliar/ difficult language. We completed a Burn2Learn in geography where we thought about the different biomes and what characteristics each of them had. Agatha decides they are no longer safe from tourists and she elicits Con's help to get them to her home in England.