Sixty-Six Posts, Seven Pages and One Roll of Sticky-Back Plastic

The eldest has started Year 7 and brought home fourteen exercise books. By book three I had used a metre and a half of plastic, the kitchen scissors and most of my marriage.

The thread opens with a simple plea: how do you cover the books without bubbles? Nobody fully answers. Instead, it fills with other parents at other kitchen tables, and with one poster who loves it. She covered her teenage daughter’s books while the daughter was out, and the daughter came home and complained. Undeterred, she asked her younger child, new to Year 7, whether there were any more books that needed doing. I read that three times. I have never wanted to meet someone more, or to post her my geography book.

The thread’s starter got there first, with an offer: anybody who genuinely enjoyed covering books could have this family’s posted to them. No parcel is recorded. Nobody has withdrawn the offer.

The problem outlived the thread. In November 2015 a Year 1 teacher at Bunbury Aldersey, a primary in Cheshire, asked families to cover homework books “with any kind of wrapping paper or sticky back plastic!”, adding that it saved her time and that she and the plastic “do not get on!” Two months earlier, a Mumsnet parent whose son had just started Year 7 was asked to decorate every book to represent its subject. One reply summed up the material: “that sticky back plastic that either makes me happy or homicidal depending on if i get air bubbles or not.” I have not had happy.

In September 2011, on another Sunday, a year after the first post, the thread’s starter was back. More books were on the way. The hatred was intact. Nobody has written a truer sequel.

Then something went wrong with me. By book eleven I had a method, a ruler and a bank card for smoothing. By book fourteen I was good. Last night I asked the youngest, who is eight and has no books that come home, whether he had any that needed doing. He said he would check his bag. He has not come downstairs since.