Eleanor & Alasdair Read That

Eleanor and Alasdair step into the trousers of time, with Terry Pratchett's 1996 novel Johnny and the Bomb. Five inept British teens find themselves in World War Two with bags of time on their hands.

Was Johnny and the Bomb "The Bomb"? Or will it bomb in our estimation? And who were the real baddies in WW2?

(It was the Nazis.)

1957–1968 was a golden age of big cats breaking into kids' houses and smashing up the joint. For this episode, Eleanor & Alasdair read Dr Seuss's The Cat in the Hat and Judith Kerr's The Tiger Who Came to Tea. We aim to decide, scientifically, which of the two books is best (with absolutely no favouritism shown towards the one we obviously like more).

Will we like the American one?

Perhaps we'll find it much more fun?

Of course, there's not much chance of that.

'Cos Eleanor hates that creepy cat.

Eleanor and Alasdair are fighting! Eleanor is in love with Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, but for Alasdair... it's complicated. The 1908 classic is a tale of motorcars, misadventure and yearning glances on the riverbank. But is it really a kid's book? Or is it a boring work of art?

Poop! Poop!

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She's small. She's ginger. She's very hard to get out of your house. No, not Eleanor Morton. We're talking about Arietty Clock, the tiny teenage protagonist of Mary Norton's 1952 novel The Borrowers. The Borrowers are a diminutive people who love stealing almost as much as they love the British class system.

But has this tale of curtain-climbing social climbers aged well? Find out in Series 2 of Eleanor & Alasdair Read That.

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The stone table cracks and Eleanor & Alasdair return to Narnia. It's time to pass judgement on The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe. Eleanor sings the praises of the dodgy beaver costumes in the 1988 BBC adaptation and Alasdair gets annoyed about a stupid kids' film for babies. But is C. S. Lewis's book a Turkish Delight? Or is it a Turkish Delight (derogatory)?

We recommend you go back and listen to Part 1 before this episode. (Unless you're one of those people who thinks you should read The Magician's Nephew before the other Narnia books, and you prefer it when callbacks make no sense.)

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