posted on 11 Nov 2016

Children’s Books : a window on our social history

A recent article on the Little Things website has reminded me of what a rich source of social history there is to be found in children’s books. In this particular feature Laura Caseley examines two editions of Richard Scarry’s The Best Word Book Ever that were printed thirty years apart and discovers some revealing amendments and up-dating that tell us a whole lot about how social attitudes and mores have changed over that time. A range of examples are identified, the vast majority of which address the casual sexism that was a feature of the original. Caseley concludes:

It’s always strange to see childhood classics change. But society, and the people in it, grow and evolve with the passage of time, and that’s okay!

Her confidence that what she calls ‘the classics’ can be updated as a matter of course to reflect changing social attitudes is not one that is necessarily accepted by everyone. There are those who would argue that the original text and drawings represent an important window on the world at the time they were produced and that these can be fertile ground for raising discussion about issues such as equality and gender representation with younger children.

In September of this year The Guardian newspaper reported that the publishers, Hachette had abandoned the experiment of updating the language in Enid Blyton’s Famous Five stories because the new and revised text simply didn’t resonate with their reading audience:

Tony Summerfield, who runs the Enid Blyton Society, said:

“I can only approve – the closer we get back to Blyton’s original language, the better. I’m not going to gripe at the odd word like ‘queer’ being changed; no doubt in 10 years’ time a lot of words will have changed….. If Enid ever got any criticism in her time, it was because her language was too simple. To say she needed to be rewritten in language children could understand is a bit of an insult to children.”

I think there is an issue of authenticity at the heart of this debate. Children’s books (like any book) are a product of their time and place and they need to be understood in that context – and part of the value in reading them lies in the fact that there is a social history to engage with as well as a text.

I also think that there are some assumptions made in this free-wheeling attitude to updating children’s books that I’m personally not too comfortable with. Firstly, I think it reflects a belief that children’s books are in some way lesser literature than adult books and can be changed at the whim of someone other than the author. Would we feel comfortable with someone coming along and ‘up-dating’ adult ‘classics’? I can think of plenty of adult works from the past that use language and contain social attitudes I don’t feel entirely comfortable with but I certainly don’t think I should be insisting that the work of John Buchan, Rider-Haggard, Conan-Doyle or Joseph Conrad could be better amended by me.

I’m also uncertain about the notion that anyone other than the author knows what the book should be saying – who has decided that expunging perceived gender inequalities is a good or desirable thing? I certainly want to see children’s books with progressive social attitudes towards a range of issues but I’m not certain I want to foist those views onto another author who is the legitimate owner of that intellectual property. I can only imagine how annoyed I would be if the roles were reversed.

I lecture on a course that helps prepare students for taking their place a workforce that supports vulnerable children and families and I am delighted that we encourage students to go to literature – especially children’s literature – to explore the ways in which our discourse about the nature of childhood and family life has changed over time. The huge body of children’s books that are out there are valuable time capsules that capture social attitudes as they were when these books were published. I say leave them alone and, if you want a book with progressive attitudes there are plenty of those to select for your child instead. But, rather than ignore these old books for their supposed antediluvian attitudes, why not use them as a way of talking to your children about the issues?

 

Terry Potter

November 2016