Childhood's Pattern: A Study of the Heroes and Heroines of Children's Fiction, 1770-1950

by Gillian Avery

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Gillian Elise Avery was a British children's novelist, and a historian of childhood education and children's literature. She won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in 1972 for A Likely Lad. It was adapted for television in 1990.

Reviews

[Nick Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating premise led me to pick this up in an antiquarian bookshop, and though it was certainly interesting once I read it, it also disappointed slightly. This - regrettably - was more because of my own presuppositions, which seems a little unfair, but 'fairly good' was the overall sense I got from reading this non-fiction piece.

Avery aims to review the moral content of fictional works for children from the mid eighteenth to mid twentieth century. She clearly has done a lot of research and pulls out some very interesting and overarching themes in exploring this genre. I learned plenty about the sociology of the period, about the importance of religion (Anglocentric as this book is), about gender roles and morality. It's interestingly heavy-handed how the written word was used, and poses all kinds of questions about other areas of literature and printed media in general.

Perhaps though I was expecting something a little more overarching in the sense of fairy stories, allegory and folk literature. It to me felt a bit more like the author focussed on seven or eight specific themes/subgenres and provided examples without (as might also have been interesting) fully quantifying and discussing the impact of children having been brought up on these stories. In addition, I was left wondering about the 'next' period (the book was published in 1975 and only dealt with children's literature up to 1950). It was disappointing how much of which was written about, I had not ever read.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this for a post-graduate Diploma in Children's Lit, and it was excellent.

We read examples of the ‘improving’ stories for children’ of the C18th and C19th, and they were always more ‘improving’ for the girls, who delivered charity baskets on Sundays as part of their evangelical duties, and Felt Joy as they did it. (Boys learned to be manly, of course, and laughed at little ‘dandies’ depicted grotesquely in illustrations. But they were (inevitably) always kind to ‘poor boys’ who could not read middle-class books like they could).

Then we progressed to the C20th, and we read stories of jolly girls playing hockey and spurning anyone who sooked over being sent away from home or breached the (children’s) moral code of the boarding school. They were always fiercely patriotic and deeply suspicious of anyone from Europe, plus anti-German by default.

It was such a relief when we reached the post war period and the stories for children were interesting in their own right rather than as curiosity pieces.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in enquiring into the didactic purposes of today's children's literature. It shows you what to look for.

[Peter Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellentand invaluable book for collectors of children's literature. Packed with information on authors and illustrators. Highly recommended.