The Playgroup

by Janey Fraser

Janey Fraser's collection of uplifting, funny and relatable novels is back with a new look. Stay tuned for more this 2024!

393 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 6, 2024

About the author

Janey Fraser always dreamed of writing novels in a country cottage with lots of children, a dog and a pony. Unbelievably, most of her dreams were answered although not without some rather large hiccups along the way!

After a career in women's magazines interviewing celebrities like Julie Walters and Nigel Havers, Janey wrote several non-fiction books about childcare including 'Tidy Your Room; How to get kids to do what you want'. Unfortunately, she has never quite succeeded in doing that with her own three. She has also written a series of children's books, including 'When Mum Was Little' and 'When Gran Was Little'.

Janey has appeared live on breakfast television, talking about her books, and has also been on numerous radio programmes including Woman's Hour and The Learning Curve. She also writes short stories for magazines; runs writing courses; is a regular speaker at literary festivals including Winchester and Guildford.

Her recent hobby is belly dancing, much to the horror of her children. However, Janey firmly believes that embarrassing one's offspring is a perk of the job.

Find out more at www.janeyfraser.co.uk

Reviews

[Linda Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book, probably because I taught in schools, muchlike the one in the book. The substitute teacher is so like me that I could relate to everything.The room set up with many choices, some of which the parents didn't. Montessori classroms are set up similar as the children choose from among Montessori material. Parents often don't understand what their children are doing, especially in th e"messy area". This is the perfect time to form parent groups, then teach thr parents what their children are doing and why. Have lots of reasons for the parents to come to the classroom. Get to know each child and their families. In this case one of the children( Billy) contacts a very rare desease and Billy may die if does not get a bone marrow transplant and relative matches, so the teacher organizes a way that many could also be tested. But none matched , they then found out that the teacher natched and they wanted to do it the next day. unfortunely, a huge frieldtrip and thr trschers had spent many days nmaking sure all would be in conrol with several parents volunteering so that each adult woud have 4-5 children who they would be totally in charge of for the day. Alittle girl got lost. "Lily" as she was known, wanted to buy a gift for Billy, so she stopped at the store on the way in and then couldn't finf the group decided to go hide in comw near boats, cupboard, where she was warm and felt safe. She heard the people calling "Lily" but that was not her name, her name was "Natasha". She spent the night in the cupoard , where she was cold and scared. The cleaning lady had her her speaking her language when "Lily" was playing alone and spoke to her in their native languageAnother went to search the boats and found the" mother" and things began to reunite Natash with her real mother. Billy is getting better, the teacher has recovered quickly and returned to the classroom for the last few weeks of school. As one would, expect all turns out well for everyone in the Puddleducks classro0m.
AS to the various love stories mixed in all that goes in thePuddleducks classroom, you will have to read this cute little book for yourself, HAVE FUN!!

[Vicki Prather · Rating 5 out of 5]

wasn’t sure I’d like, but …

Unexpectedly delightful! The imperfections of each character made them believable and likable and very relatable.
The perfect balance of a variety of character types, too!

[Lesley Atkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great fun

As a former Preschool leader who worked in a similar situation I just couldn’t ignore this book. It took me back to those days which were so much fun. Mostly true to life as I knew it. A nice easy read. I would recommend this book.

[Alice Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, this was so lovely!