The forgotten
tradition of
radical children’s
literature and its
relevance today
Professor Kimberley
Reynolds
Newcastle University
[email protected]
Carnegie winner 1937
Carnegie winner 1939
Carnegie winner 1940
Coming soon…
Reading and
Rebellion: an
anthology of radical
writing for British
children, 1900-1960
Edited by Kimberley
Reynolds, Jane Rosen
and Michael Rosen
‘An age of brass between two
of gold’
Children’s books
 ‘retreated from the realities of the world
surrounding the child and the book’
 ‘largely ignored class and political
struggles’
 rejected modernist and avant-garde
experiments
Some British children’s writers
of the 1920s to 1940s
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Edward Ardizzone
Enid Blyton
Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
Eleanor Farjeon
Eve Garnett
Kathleen Hale
W.E. Johns
Hugh Lofting
Walter de la Mare
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John Masefield
A.A. Milne
Arthur Ransome
Frank Richards
Noel Streatfeild
J.R.R. Tolkien
P.L. Travers
Geoffrey Trease
Radical children’s books
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Work for social change
through children’s literature
Introduce new visions of
society
Assume the young are socially
aware and interested in
improving society
Give readers skills, ideas,
information to effect
progressive change
Aim for a stable, fair and equal
society
Feature all kinds of children
Value youthful opinions
Boys and Girls Bring in the New World
Geoffrey Trease
Red Comet: A tale of travel in the U.S.S.R. (1936)
New sciences to improve life
for the many
Preparing to improve society
‘Boys and girls bring
in the future’ from,
An Outline for Boys
and Girls and Their
Parents (1932)
An Outline for Boys and Girls and Their
Parents (1932)
To give ‘the people
who will be running
things in the next
twenty years [...] all the
different kinds of
knowledge and values’
needed to correct the
mistakes of the past
and intelligently
construct the future.
Mitchison in the USSR, 1952 dancing
with Arnold Kettle, Doris Lessing
and Young Pioneers
CONTRIBUTORS
Hugh Gaitskill (economics)
W.H. Auden (literature)
Clough William-Ellis
(architecture)
+ Cutting-edge thinkers
from leading universities
and arts institutions
‘a book for the next generation, reflecting the best
of the leading liberal thinkers of the day, challenging
Many of the more conventional assumptions’
I imagined I was
Dickon following Alana-Day's battle cry 'all
men equal from sea to
sea', taking on the
lords, abbots and
tyrants. An outdoor
outlaw walking so
carefully that they
couldn't hear a twig
snap under my feet. It
took courage for me
to scale their walls - to
get my ball back!
The way many of us experienced the ‘Party’ when we
were children was through culture: songs, poems,
stories and plays which were performed and distributed
through books, camping holidays, bazaars, film shows
and informal gatherings of friends and relatives.
Michael Rosen
Reviving radical children’s
literature
Reviving radical children’s
literature
Little Rebels Children’s Book
Award
Sarah Garland,
Azzi in Between
More little rebels
2016 winner
My 2017 choice…