I was fortunate enough to have the privilege of writing a forward to Daniel Pennac’s School Blues (“Marks out of 10”, TES Magazine, September 24). I was pleased to see your reviewer give it a nine out of ten.
It might have been helpful to those who are interested to have explained that Reads Like a Novel was the title of an earlier translation of Comme un roman, and that the more recent translation (by Sarah Ardizzone, who also translated Chagrin d’ecole) has the title Rights of the Reader. The key French word in School Blues is cancre, which your reviewer manages to spell incorrectly twice, and not to spell correctly even once. I don’t know how many marks you deduct for that.
Quentin Blake, Illustrator and author, London.