University of Strathclyde

Department of
English Studies
Glasgow G1 1XH
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CHILDREN'S LITERATURE

Michelle Magorian, Goodnight Mister Tom (1981)

1. Vast number of children's books published between The Chronicles of Narnia and Goodnight Mister Tom (1981); transformation in children's literature and concept of childhood.

2. Young adult fiction: see Children's Books in English, pp.775-78.
2.1 'Problem fiction' or 'young adult fiction' written for/dealing with problems of teenagers/young adults.
2.2 'As a genre, young adult fiction did not exist until well after World War II' (p.775); 'It deals with a teenage identity which is separate from that of either adulthood or childhood, and often takes its cue from J.D. Salinger's influential Catcher in the Rye (1951). Often characters experience a sense of isolation and exclusion from the rest of the world which has to be worked through before they can establish their own identity. Young adult literature is often concerned with teenagers' search for this identity as they struggle against the apparent restrictions of adult authority' (p.775).
2.3 The 'teenager' emerged in USA; in Britain, 'the Peacock list was set up in the early 1960s to publish paperback fiction for young adults' (p.775).
2.4 Margery Fisher, in Intent Upon Reading (1961), recommends that 'writers need not always pretend that parents are always kind and tolerant, always interested in what their children are doing: their readers know otherwise' (quoted, p.775).

3. From WW2 to 1970: see Twentieth Century page on class website.

· Marguerite de Angeli, Bright April (1946): 'one of the earliest books to focus on the problems of a black child' (Children’s Literature, p.255).
· Anne Frank: The Diary of Anne Frank (1947; trans. 1953; new trans. unexpurgated version, 1995); Tales From the Secret Annex: Stories, Essays, Fables and Reminiscences Written in Hiding (1949, transl. 1983).
· William Golding, Lord of the Flies (1954); anti-Robinsonnade; not written for but often read by children.
· Ian Serraillier, The Silver Sword (1956): four young refugees escape from Nazi-occupied Poland and go in search of parents.
· Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960): effects of racism in small American town (black man falsely accused of raping a white woman) seen through eyes of children.
· Scott O'Dell: mistreatment of Native Americans; Island of the Blue Dolphins (1960) alternative Robinsonnade about young Native American girl.
· Joan Aiken: The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (1962): part of historical fantasy series; scenes involving mistreatment of children by adults.
· Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time (1962): first novel of the 'Time Quartet' (science fiction/fantasy plus elements of young adult 'problem' novel).
· Anne Holm, I am David (1965): boy's escape from Nazi concentration camp.
· John Donovan, I'll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip (1969): groundbreaking novel about same-sex sexuality: 'Around 90 novels with gay and/or lesbian content have since been published in the United States and Britain' (Children's Books, p.281).

4. Contemporary Children's Literature (up to 1981): see Contemporary page on class website.

Focuses on wide range of issues that contemporary children/young adults might face: problematic relationships with parents, child abuse, bullying, sex, sexuality, sexual identity, pregnancy, racial identity and racism, drugs, etc. Some books have provoked controversy. Some explore multiculturalism and postcolonial experience of children outside Britain/USA. Some draw on postmodernist impulses - experimenting with narrative form and breaking with conventions of closure ('poetics of innocence'). Monolithic Anglo-centric view of innocent childhood gives way to notion that childhood is differently shaped by different cultural, sexual, ethnic, and national contexts.

· Jane Gardam: A Long Way from Verona (1971): wartime experience in Teesside; anticipates teenage novel.
· K.M. Peyton: 'Flambards' quartet (1967-1982) – 'pony story' tracks heroine from childhood to womanhood; Pennington’s Seventeenth Summer (1970) brought school story up to date for teenage readers.
· Virginia Hamilton: black American writer: feminist/postmodernist books for children/young adults explore/celebrate African American experience/ multiculturalism: eg, The Planet of Junior Brown (1971).
· Nina Bawden: prolific writer committed to social and emotional realism; eg, Carrie's War (1975) - two children evacuated from London to Wales during WW2.
· Rosemary Sutcliff: historical fiction for children, including Sun Horse, Moon Horse (1977) and Song for a Dark Queen (1978).
· Richard Adams, Watership Down (1972).
· Robert Cormier: US author; books for young adults deal with extreme situations in pessimistic ways; novels such as I am the Cheese (1977) have been (mostly) well received by young readers but criticised by adults for bleak vision.
· Mildred D. Taylor: African American author; novels about resistance to racial oppression in America, including Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry (1976).
· Toeckey Jones, Go Well, Stay Well (1979): novel for young adults about uprising of school children against apartheid in South Africa.
· Ann Harries, The Sound of the Gora (1980): novel for young adults that critically examines apartheid in South Africa.
· Lois Lowry: challenging themes in novels for children and young adults: A Summer to Die (1977), about a sister dying of cancer; Find a Stranger, Say Good-Bye (1978), about teenage girl looking for real mother; Number the Stars (1990), about Nazi occupation of Denmark.
· Alan Garner: The Owl Service (1967) and Red Shift (1973) 'experiment controversially with dialogue and structure to treat adolescent sexuality, class and violence' (Children's Books, p.280).
· Farrukh Dhondy: British-Indian author: East End at Your Feet (1976) - ethnic, social and sexual issues through eyes of British and British-Asian teenagers in 1970s.
· Joan Lingard: Scottish-born writer; fiction deals with troubles in Northern Ireland and Scottish history: Across the Barricades (1972), The Clearance (1974), The Resettling (1975), The Pilgrimage (1976), etc.
· Judy Blume: (70+ million books sold); 'problem' issues for teen and pre-teen American girls – including Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (1970) - anxieties of girl on cusp of puberty; Forever (1975) - explicit book about teenage girl's first sexual experience (still banned in a number of states).
· Deborah Hautzig: Hey, Dollface (1978) - sexual attraction between two adolescent schoolgirls; Second Star to the Right (1981), about anorexia.
· Laurence Yep: Chinese-American author; novels for children and young adults explore implications of being bi-cultural, including Dragonwings (1975).
· Rosa Guy: books for children and young adults deal with racial issues in USA, including The Friends (1973), Ruby (1976), Edith Jackson (1978), and Mother Crocodile (1982).

5. Bibliotherapy: 'The practice of recommending appropriate works of fiction for children experiencing social or personal problems (such as drug addiction, abuse or bereavement) in the expectation that accounts of fictional children coping with similar difficulties – followed by discussion of the issues – will help young readers. The practice was especially prevalent in the USA during the 1980s' (Children's Books in English, p.79). See R.J. Rubin, Using Bibliotherapy: A Guide to Theory and Practice (1978), B. Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment (1975), J. Bruner, Actual Minds, Possible Worlds (1986), and R. Bauman, Story, Performance and Event (1986).

6. World War II: popular setting for children's/young adults' literature: 'War Stories', Children's Literature in English, pp.737-40.

7. Michelle Magorian (b.1947): historical fiction for children/young adults set in 1940s; celebrates liberating effects of nature, reading, children's literature, the theatre, liberal education, music, art, friendship and love.
7.1 Goodnight Mister Tom (1981): winner Guardian Children's Fiction Award (1981) and International Reading Association Children's Book Award (1982); taught in schools; number 49 in BBC's 'The Big Read'; BAFTA award-winning TV film (1998).
7.2 Back Home (1985): 12-year-old Rusty returns to England in 1945, having been an evacuee in USA; conflict with father; transformation in women's lives through war work (Puffin); winner of American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults; TV film (1989); dramatised for BBC Radio 4.
7.3 A Little Love Song (1991): young adult fiction set in 1943; 17-year-old Rose and older sister evacuated to seaside town free of adult supervision and experience summer of self-discovery and love.
7.4 Cuckoo in the Nest (1994): aftermath of WW2; 16-year-old Ralph wants to work in theatre, but faces antagonism of working-class father and poverty-stricken background: theatre as means of self-discovery and transcendence.
7.5 A Spoonful of Jam (1998): set in 1947; focuses on Elsie (Ralph's younger sister), working-class scholarship girl in girl's grammar school struggling against father's indifference to her love of books and reading.
7.6 Be Yourself (2003): book of short stories.

8. Goodnight Mister Tom (1981; Puffin, 1996).
8.1 Controversy: discovery of William locked under the stair with dead baby sister; 'Although its suitability for children has been questioned because of this episode, the novel is widely taught in schools, both for its convincing depiction of World War II and because of the strength of its writing, plot and characterisation' (Children's Books in English, p.293).
8.2 No adventures or heroism in conventional sense; does not remove adults – two adult-child relationships at novel's core.
8.3 Concepts of childhood: ideal childhood in countryside, 40 years before time of writing; country-city divide; William's mother's extreme version of Puritan view of childhood (William has internalised that view); Mister Tom and other characters in Little Weirwold assume that childhood is about play (and chores/hard work), freedom to roam, love of animals, tolerance (of each child's individual nature), independence, reading, art, theatre, music, friendship - with loving adult-child relationship at core.
8.5 Institutional treatment of children by first child psychiatrist and by hospital: another form of child abuse? (pp.266-73).
8.6 Differing views of childhood related to different concepts of education (p.11).
8.7 Questions of the body also central: William's mother chastises his body; Mister Tom cares for his body, which becomes brown and strong; he admires Zach's body; in chapter called 'Recovery' Zach informs William about the facts of life (pp.331-2); Annie Hartridge breast-feeds her baby in front of him (p.341); at the end, has awakening sexual interest in Carrie, whose unselfconsciousness allows him to notice she's beginning to develop breasts (p.420).
8.8 Celebrates reading (though George can't see the point!): William initially illiterate; learning to read a liberating process of self-discovery; allows other creative outlets (theatre, choir): ritual of Mister Tom reading to William helps establish relationship; the Bible (NB contrasting approaches of William's mother – 'I'm not interested in stories. You learnt by rote before you left here' (p.262) and Mister Tom); comics – 'daring exploits of Pecos Bill' (p.78); in the library Miss Thorne selects Kipling's Just So Stories (p.76); The Wind in the Willows (p.147); Grimms' Fairy Tales (p.159); A Christmas Carol (pp.201ff); books in school (p.225); Treasure Island (p.233); Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales (p.236); Peter Pan (p.414); Zach's books and allusions to books; conclusion - William shares love of reading (and of Zach) with Carrie: 'At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald ... A Little Princess, David Copperfield and Black Beauty' (pp.420-21).
8.9 Friendship with Zach: different class, religion, world-view; Zach a great reader: 'this is the first time I've actually sort of lived in the country. I've read books that are set in the country and, of course, poems' (p.100); his speech is middle class; incorporates allusions to/phrases from high, popular and children's culture (Buster Keaton: p.120); challenges British-Protestant repressive attitudes; his friendship a catalyst to William's and Carrie's emerging self-discovery.

Seminar

Focus on chapter 10: 'The Case' (pp.157-81).

What do you find interesting/significant/revealing/worth discussing in this chapter? Be prepared to quote evidence and say why it supports your point.

To prepare for the seminar you should read the chapter closely, highlighting or underlining the passages you wish to discuss.

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