Key stages2-4: “Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tallI he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catchI There was a long jagged scar that ran across his faceI” That’s part of Jem’s “reasonable description” of Boo Radley, in To Kill a Mockingbird. Scary. By the end of the book, in Scout’s perception and in ours, Boo has become Mr Arthur Radley, and a friend. A “freak” has become a human being. Whether they are deployed in the context of English or of citizenship, our stock cupboards are full of texts that invite pupils to “use their imagination to consider other people’s experiences” and to find the human being behind the apparent freak. Use this article to spark introductory discussion leading to better-informed study of Of Mice and Men, of John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids, or of almost anything by Ray Bradbury. Further reading: The Dwarf from Ray Bradbury’s The October Country.

www.raybradbury.combooksoctobercountry.html for a useful extract.