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