British Working-Class Writing for Children: Scholarship Boys in the Mid-Twentieth Century

Description

This book explores how working-class writers in the 1960s and 1970s significantly reshaped British children’s literature through their representations of working-class life and culture. Aidan Chambers, Alan Garner and Robert Westall were examples of what Richard Hoggart termed ‘scholarship boys’: working-class individuals who were educated out of their class through grammar school education. This book highlights the role these writers played in changing the publishing and reviewing practices of the British children's literature industry while offering new readings of their novels featuring scholarship boys. As well as drawing on the work of Raymond Williams and Pierre Bourdieu, and referring to studies of scholarship boys in the fields of social science and education, this book also explores personal interviews and previously-unseen archival materials. Yielding significant insights on British children’s literature of the period, this book will be of particular interest to scholars and students in the fields of children’s and working-class literature and of British popular culture. Front Matter ....Pages i-viii Introduction (Haru Takiuchi)....Pages 1-22 Front Matter ....Pages 23-23 Class Culture and Children’s Book Publishing: Leila Berg’s Nippers and Aidan Chambers’ Topliner (Haru Takiuchi)....Pages 25-46 Bad Language or Working-Class Language: Robert Westall’s The Machine Gunners (Haru Takiuchi)....Pages 47-66 Front Matter ....Pages 67-67 Education and Uncertainty in Aidan Chamber’s Dance on My Grave (Haru Takiuchi)....Pages 69-86 Aidan Chambers’ Breaktime: Class, Anxiety and Home (Haru Takiuchi)....Pages 87-104 Alan Garner’s Red Shift: The Anger of the Scholarship Boy (Haru Takiuchi)....Pages 105-128 Front Matter ....Pages 129-129 Class and Children’s Book Criticism (Haru Takiuchi)....Pages 131-152 The Conclusion of The Owl Service: Critical Ignorance of Class Anger (Haru Takiuchi)....Pages 153-173 Robert Westall’s Fathom Five: The Scholarship Boy and Socialism (Haru Takiuchi)....Pages 175-204 Conclusion: “The Awareness of Standing Between Two Cultures” (Haru Takiuchi)....Pages 205-212 Back Matter ....Pages 213-218