Woman's Hour - 26/08/2009

With Jenni Murray. Susan Pope lost her job as a school nurse after she was arrested for allegations of abusing her children following a smacking incident. All charges have been dropped against her, and her son says he is sorry. Susan has since lost her claim for unfair dismissal. How worried by this story should we be and to what extent does it indicate a breakdown of children's relationships with their parents and adults in general? Is this an example showing how parents have lost their authority and children their respect? Jenni is joined by Frank Furedi, Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, Helen Reese, Reader in Law at Birkbeck, and Esther Rantzen, the broadcaster who founded Childline. Michelle Paver has just published Ghost Hunter - the final book in a series of six children's novels that have collectively sold over three million copies worldwide. Charting the adventures of a Stone Age teenager called Torak, his wolf companion and best friend Renn, all six stories in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness are set in a prehistoric world 6,000 years BC - a world of clans, evil Soul Eaters and natural magic. Michelle joins Jenni to talk about her work and about the extensive research she's done to make her stories as real as possible - research that has included learning the ways of the Inuit people, swimming with killer whales, eating seal blubber and getting to know some wolves. We ask why Penguin's acclaimed and beautifully designed Great Ideas series includes so few books by women - the latest sequence of 20 slim volumes features 19 male writers (including Shakespeare, Robert Louis Stevenson and George Orwell) but women are represented by a solitary contribution - from Virginia Woolf. So which women would you like to see represented on this list of pivotal thinkers? Jenni will be meeting the series editor, who says he is open to listeners' suggestions for the next series. Your partner says the TV is on too loud and you never listen. You wonder why the whole world seems to mumble. We'll be talking about hearing loss, and how, if it hits you, it affects not just you, but those closest to you. Jenni speaks to Jackie Ballard from the RNID, along with the deaf comedian Steve Day, to discuss how losing your hearing can change a relationship.