Reading and Rebellion

An Anthology of Radical Writing for Children 1900-1960

Edited by Kimberley Reynolds, Jane Rosen, and Michael Rosen

Reveals the little-known genre of politically committed children's publications in inter-war and post-war Britain
Presents more than 50 examples and extracts, from picture books, plays, song-books, novels, pamphlets
Arranged in fourteen thematic sections, each with an introduction capturing what it was like to read these books and attend performances of left-wing songs and stories as a child growing up in this period
Covers the full age spectrum of young readers, from pre-school children to adolescents
Includes a preface by the journalist and writer Polly Toynbee

Reading and Rebellion

An Anthology of Radical Writing for Children 1900-1960

Edited by Kimberley Reynolds, Jane Rosen, and Michael Rosen

Description

Kim Reynolds, Jane Rosen, and Michael Rosen present a new anthology of radical writings for children from the first half of the twentieth century. In the years 1900 to 1960, large sections of the British population embraced a spectrum of left-wing positions with a view to maintaining peace and creating a more just, less class riven, more planned, and more enjoyable society for all. Children's books and periodicals were a central part of radical activity since the young were expected not just to inherit but also to help make this new society, and reading was regarded as the most direct way of helping them acquire the skills for this task. From alphabets through picture books, periodicals, information books, plays, song-books, pamphlets, and novels, many works of children's literature leaned left, but with the possible exception of references to Geoffrey Trease's Bows Against the Barons (1934), a Marxist retelling of the Robin Hood story, it is almost impossible to realise this from standard accounts of this period. This anthology contains a wide selection of the kinds of materials that left-wing and progressive parents would have wanted their children to read and which children understood as part of their initiation into a politically radical class.

Reading and Rebellion

An Anthology of Radical Writing for Children 1900-1960

Edited by Kimberley Reynolds, Jane Rosen, and Michael Rosen

Preface, Polly Toynbee
Acknowledgements
Introduction, Kimberley Reynolds, Jane Rosen, Michael Rosen
Part 1: Stories for young socialists
'King Midas' published in The Young Socialist (1902), Alexander Gossip
From 'The Coal Cargo' in Pages for Young Socialists (1913), F.J. Gould
'Greed the Guy' from Tomfooleries (1920) and 'The First of May' from Moonshine (1921), 'Tom Fool' [Eleanor Farjeon]
'The Story of the Island of Fish' from Eddie and the Gipsy (1935), Alex Wedding
From Adventures of the Little Pig and other stories (1936), F. le Gros and Ida Clark
From Hue and Cry (1956), Fielden Hughes
Mickey the Mongrel, the class conscious dog No. 2, 'Whitewash' (Daily Worker 3 January, 1930)
Part 2: The war against war
From War in Dollyland (1915), Harry Golding
'Don't Shoot Your Class!' from The Revolution (1918), Tom Anderson
From Not So Quiet: Stepdaughters of War (1930), Helen Zenna Smith
'A Life with a Purpose - or a grave in Malaya' from Challenge (1949), Anon
'Last Night I had the Strangest Dream' (1950), Ed McCurdy
Part 3: Writing and revolution
'Little Peter' from Proletcult (1.9, 1922), Hermynia Zur Muhlen
'Steel Spokes' from Martin's Annual (1931), T. H. Wintringham
The Red Corner Book for Children, title page, frontispiece and miscellaneous items (1931)
'The People Speak' from Bows Against the Barons (1934), Geoffrey Trease
'Lower Ranks' from A White Sail Gleams (1936), Valentin Katayev
'How Till Bought Land in Luneburg' from The Amazing Pranks of Master Till Eulenspiegel (1936), L. Gombrich
'Little Tusker's Own Paper,' Daily Worker (1945), Barbara Niven and Ern Brook
Mickey the Mongrel, the class conscious dog No. 7, 'Selling' (Daily Worker 11 January, 1930)
Part 4: Of Russia with love
From The Diary of a Communist Schoolboy (1928), Nikolai Ognyov
'A New Kind of Park' from Red Comet (1937), Geoffrey Trease
Wash 'Em Clean (1923), Kornei Chukovsky
What is Good and What is Bad (1925), Vladimir Mayakovsky
From Timur and his Comrades (1943), A. Gaidar
'The Telephone' from Jolly Family (1950), N. Nosov
Part 5: Examples from life
'Safar the Hero' from Folk Tales of the Peoples of the Soviet Union (1945), Gerard Shelley
Extracts from Tomorrow is a New Day: A Youth Edition (1945), Jennie Lee
Come In (1946), Olive Dehn
'The First Labour M.P.'; 'Hunger Strike Heroine'; 'In Great-Great-Great Grandfather's Day: A historian tells the story of the 'Battle of Peterloo'' from Daily Worker Children's Annual (1957)
Karl Marx: Founder of Modern Communism (1963), Arnold Kettle
Mickey the Mongrel, the class conscious dog No. 14, 'Bertram Bulldog' (Daily Worker 18 January, 1930)
Part 6: Performing leftness
The World's May Day: A Celebration (1924), J.H. Bingham
From The Big Rock Candy Mountain (1955), Alan Lomax
Selected 'Songs of Struggle' from If I had a Song: a song book for children growing up (1954), Alan Gifford
Songs for Elfins (selected songs, c. 1950)
Part 7: Fighting fascism
'Side-light on the Blackshirts' and 'Fight War and Fascism' from Out of Bounds: Public Schools' Journal against Fascism, Militarism and Reaction (1934), T. P./Anon
'Red Front' from Martin's Annual (1935), Michael Davidson
'Blacking His Shirt' from Martin's Annual (1935), Anon
Extracts from 'I For Influenza' from Rescue in Ravensdale (1946), Esme Cartmell
Mickey the Mongrel, the class conscious dog No. 46, 'Lionel Lapdog' (Daily Worker 27 February, 1930)
Part 8: Science and social transformation
'The Child of the Future' from The Young Socialist (1913), Margaret MacMillan
'The Beginning of Trade' from Pollycon (1933), E. F. Stucley
'Whatever Happens' from The Radium Woman (1937), Eleanor Doorly
'The Fate of Books' from Black on White (1942), M Ilin
Extracts from The Magic of Coal (1945), Peggy Hart
Extracts from 'Numbers and Nothing' from Man Must Measure (1955), Lancelot Hogben
Part 9: Sex for beginners
From 'Sex Knowledge' in Proletcult (1923), Margaret Dobson (pen-name of Tom Anderson)
Extracts from How You Began (1928), Amabel Williams-Ellis
'Hero-Worship Adrift: Film-Star Hero or Games Mistress?' and 'Morning Glory (Sex in Public Schools)' from Out of Bounds: Public Schools' Journal against Fascism, Militarism and Reaction (1934), Phyllis Baker / Giles Romilly
Extracts from 'Physiology' from An Outline for Boys and Girls and Their Parents (1932), Winifred Cullis and Evelyn Hewer
Mickey the Mongrel, the class conscious dog 335, 'Air Display' (Daily Worker 1 January, 1932)
Part 10: Visions of the future
'The Sorry Present and the Expelled Little Boy' from The Story of the Amulet (1906), E. Nesbit
Extracts from New Russia's Primer: Story of the Five-Year Plan (1931), M. Ilin
Extracts from 'Problems and Solutions' in Naomi Mitchison, ed. extracts from An Outline for Boys and Girls and Their Parents (1932), Olaf Stapledon
'Danger! High Tension!' from The 35th of May, or Conrad's Ride to the South Seas (1933), Erich Kastner
Extracts from Village and Town (1942), S. R. Badmin
Mickey the Mongrel, the class conscious dog (unnumbered final Mickey the Mongrel cartoon, Daily Worker 1 January, 1932)
Works cited
Index

Reading and Rebellion

An Anthology of Radical Writing for Children 1900-1960

Edited by Kimberley Reynolds, Jane Rosen, and Michael Rosen

Author Information

Kimberley Reynolds, Newcastle University,Jane Rosen, Imperial War Museum,Michael Rosen, Goldsmiths, University of London

Kimberley Reynolds is the Professor of Children's Literature in the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics at Newcastle University in the UK. She has served on the boards of a number of national and international organisations, is a Past President of the International Research Society for Children's Literature, and was the first Senior Honorary Research Fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions at the University of Western Australia. She has lectured and published widely on a variety of aspects of children's literature. Her monograph, Radical Children's Literature: Future Visions and Aesthetic Transformations (2007) received the Children's Book Award for 2009. In 2013 she received the International Brothers Grimm Award for scholarly contributions to the field of children's literature studies.

Jane Rosen is a Librarian who works in Special Libraries. She is currently employed in a national museum. Her research interests include radical and working-class children's literature and education, and she has presented papers on the subject at several international conferences. She has also published reviews and articles in a variety of publications including an essay on The Young Socialist in Little Red Readings: Historical Materialist Perspectives on Children's Literature (2014).

Michael Rosen is the Professor of Children's Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has been teaching children's literature on MA courses since 1993 at University of North London/London Metropolitan University and Birkbeck, prior to his tenure at Goldsmiths. Since 1974 he has published over 150 books for children (poetry, picture book texts, fiction, non-fiction), including We're Going on a Bear Hunt (illustrated by Helen Oxenbury), The Sad Book (illustrated by Quentin Blake), and Quick Let's Get Out of Here (illustrated by Quentin Blake). His books for adults include Alphabetical, how every letter tells a story (John Murray) and The Disappearance of Emile Zola: Love, Literature and the Dreyfus Case (Faber and Faber). He has been broadcasting regularly on BBC World Service and Radio 4 and 3 since 1987, and hosts BBC Radio 4's 'Word of Mouth'. He writes a monthly column in Guardian Education, a column in the ew Humanist, and is poet-in-residence on 'The Teacher'.

Contributors:

Kimberley Reynolds, Jane Rosen, Michael Rosen
Alexander Gossip
F.J. Gould
'Tom Fool' [Eleanor Farjeon]
'Alex Wedding'
F. le Gros and Ida Clark
Fielden Hughes
Harry Golding
Tom Anderson
Helen Zenna Smith
Anon
Ed McCurdy